VOL. XXVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 5^3 



it is usually found; and when I had spent near a whole day in boiling the bones 

 in a dyer's vessel, without changing the water, except that I supplied what was 

 evaporated, there was not so much as a drop of oil that floated on the liquor. 

 Dr. Moulins takes notice of a very strong nervous membrane, which I confess 

 I had not time to remark, which obliquely descended from the spina dorsi to 

 the sternum and linea alba. 



After the skin was wholly removed, there being no time to examine all the 

 muscles of this huge body, I applied myself particularly to those of the pro- 

 boscis, as being of greatest moment. Wherefore the body being supine, I first 

 considered the neck, and the upper or fore part of the sternum, where I ob- 

 served two pair of muscles to arise sharp and fleshy; whereof two in the mid- 

 dle, from a small origin, were extended into large muscles, running straight 

 forward, and distinguished from each other by a white line, till they came to 

 the point of the lower jaw, their other side running obliquely outward, till 

 they came over against the articulation of the lower jaw with the upper; from 

 thence keeping the lower part of the lower jaw, they returned to the foresaid 

 point, in figure not unlike the cucullaris in human subjects, with their fibres 

 running obliquely forward from this middle line toward their external part. 

 This pair served to draw back the lower jaw, and like the platysma myoides, 

 covered all its other muscles with those of the larynx, tongue, and pharynx. 

 On the outside of this pair arose two other muscles, small at their beginning, 

 and in their progress passing in between the os zygomaticum and the skull, 

 adhering to the musculus temporalis, and ascending run up below the meatus 

 auditorius, half way between the orbit of the eye and the top of the head ; 

 where becoming very thick and round, it passed over a sharp angle of the skull 

 toward the forehead; whence descending from above the eye, it came, and 

 with its partner filled up that hoUowness in the os palati (k, pi. J3, fig. i 1) and 

 coming still lower, formed the back part of the trunk or proboscis. Afterwards, 

 the body being turned over, I had opportunity to see the tax-wax mentioned by 

 Dr. Moulins; which arises from a spina in the back part of the skull (c, pi. 14, 

 fig. 1 ) whence running backward along the sides of the seven vertebrae of the 

 neck, it terminated between the sixth and seventh vertebrae of the back, becom- 

 ing still thinner in its progress. It was about 6 inches broad, pretty thick, and 

 descended obliquely from the top of the spina vertebrarum to above the ribs, 

 and covered all the muscles which arise from the neck and support the head; 

 assisting them, as Dr. Moulins rightly observes, because the heads of qua- 

 drupeds, especially of this animal, being more pendent, have more need of 

 supporters than the head of a man, where this contrivance is wanting. Dr. 

 Moulins tells us, that it was placed edgewise, the reason of which may be, 



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