CHAPTER III 

 GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE BODY 



PROCURE a rabbit which has been recently killed, but not 

 skinned. Fasten the rabbit on its back by its four limbs to a 

 board, and then, with a small sharp and pointed knife and a 

 pair of scissors, all the dissection necessary for this lesson can 

 be made. 



The body of the rabbit, like that of a man, consists of 

 head, trunk, and limbs. The fore or anterior limbs, and the 

 hind or posterior limbs, like the arms and legs of a man, are 

 divided by joints into three main parts. The parts of the 

 forelimb correspond to parts of the hind-limb. Using the 

 terms applied to the human body, flic arm, the forearm, and 

 the hand of a forelimb correspond to the thigh, the leg, and 

 the foot of a hind-limb. The head consists of the skull and 

 the face, and is connected to the trunk by the neck. 



The larger hinder or lower part of the trunk, called the 

 abdomen, is soft and yielding when handled. The smaller 

 front or upper part of the trunk, between the forelimbs, called 

 the thorax, is firm, less yielding, and changes its shape a 

 little only on being handled. In the sides of the thorax, 

 bones, the ribs, passing from the back towards the front, 

 can be distinctly felt. In the front of the thorax, in the 

 middle, is the firm bone, the sternum, to which the ribs 

 pass. The posterior or lower end of the sternum is quite dis- 

 tinctly felt, because it projects beyond the ends of the last 

 pair of ribs joined to it. If the back of the rabbit is handled, 

 the vertebral column or spinal column, a chain of bones, 



