76G MR. ST. GEOROE MIVART ON THE [June 27, 



pets, met with an untimely end, being stolen and killed for food by 

 rapacious Burmese officials. By this the species appears to be capable 

 of easy domestication, although said by some invariably to pine away 

 and die after capture. 



The horns of the species are, if large, kept by the natives for making 

 handles for sickles ; if small, they are of no value, and either thrown 

 away or cut up and used as pegs. As to medicinal qualities, when 

 a buffaloe is bitten by a snake, the horn of the Thainyn ground to 

 powder is mixed with a solution of the leaves of the " yekazoon 

 {Ipowcea, sp.), or wild convolvulus, and given internally as a dose. 

 It is said to cure the bitten animal immediately. No other part of 

 the beast appears to be used medicinally, and the above-mentioned 

 nostrum is of no avail for the human race. 



13. Notes on the Myology of Iguana ttibercvlata. By St. 

 George Mivart, F.L.S., Lecturer on Comparative Ana- 

 tomy at St. Mary's Hospital. 



The muscles of Saurian Reptiles (in which group I by no means 

 include the Crocod'dia) have not hitherto, as far as I know, been 

 described in any detail, and have scarcely at all been figured. Many 

 facts have certainly been recorded by Meckel*; and Heusingcrf 

 has also published interesting notices (mainly referring, however, to 

 those forms in which the limbs are rudimentary) ; but the greatest 

 and most accurate record of saurian myology as yet accessible is that 

 given in the second ])art of Professor Stannius's new edition of his 

 'Anatomy of the Vertebrata'J. 



It has been suggested to me that a series of notices, accompanied 

 by woodcuts, of the main peculiarities presented by the myology of 

 different oviparous vertei)rates would be a not undesirable contribu- 

 tion to comjiarative anatomy ; and I have now the honour of laying 

 before the Zoological Society the results of my dissection of a fine 

 specimen of Iguana tuherculata, for the opportunity of making 

 which I am indebted to the rich stores of the collection of the Royal 

 College of Surgeons, and to the kindness of my friend Mr. W. H. 

 Flower. 



A correct determination of Saurian muscles, especially those of 

 the posterior extremitj', is not to be hoped for in a first attempt. 

 I have therefore thought it well to begin with the Iguana, because 

 it is a common species, readily procurable, on which account my 

 errors and misinterpretations will be the more easily rectified, 



* Traite general d' Anatomic comparee, par J. F. Meckel : traduit de I'alle- 

 mand par MM. Eiester at Alph. Sanson (Paris, 1829): tome v. 1'^ partie, et 

 tome viii. 



t In Zeitscln-ift fiir organ. Physik. Ed. iii. lift. 5. p. 481. 



\ llandbach dcr Zootouiic, von Sicbold iind Stannius. Zwciter Tlieil. Die 

 Wirbelthiure. Zwcite Auilage. Zweites Bucli. Die Amphioir-n (Berlin, 18.")G), 



pp. 10(1117, 122, 126, i;i;3. 



