MOVEMENTS.] PHYSIOLOGY. 29 



tissue. And these thinner but firmer fibres make 

 up the cord or band of tendon with which the 

 muscle finishes off at either end. 



It is by these tendons that the soft muscles 

 are joined on to the hard bones, or to some 

 of the other firm textures of the body. The 

 tendons are sometimes round and cord-Hke, some- 

 times flat and spread out. Sometimes they are very 

 long, sometimes very short, so as to be scarcely visible. 

 But always you have some amount of the firmer fibres 

 of connective tissue joining the soft muscular fibres 

 on to the bones, and generally the tendons are not 

 only firmer but much thinner and more slender than 

 the belly of the muscle. 



The muscular belly of the biceps is placed in the 

 front of the upper arm. Some little way above the 

 elbow-joint it ends in a small round strong tendon 

 which slips over tht ^ront of the elbow and is fastened 

 to, Le. grows on to, the radius at some little distance 

 below the joint (Fig. 3, P). The upper part of the 

 muscular belly ends a little below the shoulder, not 

 in one tendon but in two ^ tendons (Fig. 3, d)^ which 

 gliding over the end of the humerus are fastened to 

 the shoulder-blade (or scapula as it is called), into 

 which the hum.erus fits with a joint. 



We have then in the biceps a thick fleshy muscular 

 belly placed in the front of the arm and fastened by 

 tendons, at one end to the shoulder-blade, and at the 

 other to the fore-arm. What would happen if when 

 the arm is straight and the shoulder-blade fixed, the 

 biceps were suddenly to grow very much shorter than 



' It is unusual for muscles to have two tendons at the same end 

 Hence the name biceps, or " two-headed." 



