620 On the Entotympanic Muscle in the Common Snipe. 
internus, that immediately beneath it there lay a large 
muscle, which appeared to be, in the Snipe, the counterpart 
of the entotympanic in the Raven, but relatively very much 
more powerful, as I had expected. 
This muscle, instead of running obliquely across the skull 
as in the Raven, has a powerful origin, and runs almost 
directly backwards, at the same time dividing into two slips, 
one of which is strongly attached to. the quadrate, and the 
other equally strongly to the pterygoid, as illustrated in the 
figure. 
Now we may suppose when these muscles contract they 
pull forward the quadrates and pterygoids. They in turn 
would transmit this movement to the quadrato-jugals, jugals, 
and maxillaries. The thrust of the maxillary would in turn 
be conveyed to the premaxillary, which naturally would 
yield at its most flexible part—about an inch, in the Common 
Snipe, from the tip, as shown in the figure (text-fig. 34, 
p. 619). Now that this is what takes place I think may 
be proved by making a dissection as described above, so 
as to lay bare the entotympanic muscle, then move up and 
down the tip of the upper mandible, watching the while the 
action of the muscles. This, taken with the movement of 
the maxillary when held with the forceps as described above, 
would seem to be fair proof that such an action exists. It 
alse seems reasonable to suppose that a Snipe which gets 
its food in soft heavy ground would find, on pushing down its 
long bil, great difficulty in opening it enough to grasp the 
small insects, &c., of the presence of which the nerves at the 
tip of the upper mandible have already given warning. How 
much more easy would it be if only the tip were lifted or 
opened just enough to catch its food, which would be firmly 
held till withdrawn from the ground, when the tongue and 
tooth-like processes on the upper mandible would draw the 
prey into the mouth. Again, if the Snipe was to open the 
whole beak when submerged, mud and other foreign matter 
would fill up the tooth-like processes and interfere with the 
swallowing of the food. 
In concluding this short paper, I should like to add that 
