540 DR. J. MURIE ON THE ANATOMY OF THE SEA-LION. 
some measure due to the singularity of their muscular development and attachments, 
and, furthermore, because it has been found convenient to pursue the dissection in the 
course here followed. 
The flesh exhibits the same dark red tint of fibre which has been remarked by many 
observers’, and is characteristic, or at most is found of usual occurrence among the 
Seals proper. A certain disagreeable fishy odour exhaled from the body. The dark- 
ness of coloration of the muscular tissue is somewhat remarkable. 
1. Cutaneous layer of Muscle. (Plate LXIX.) 
Panniculus carnosus.—Probably no single set of muscular fibres more conduce to the 
peculiarity of movement and strangeness of position which the Sea-lion at times 
assumes, than does the enormously developed panniculus carnosus. In this respect 
there is some analogy between it and the Hedgehog, the 'Three-banded Armadillo, 
Porcupine, and Ornithorhynchus, in all of which, as well as in some other forms of 
the vertebrates, the cutaneous muscles are greatly developed, and powerfully assist the 
body in certain peculiar movements and postures. The entire muscle in question is 
part and parcel of the extensive sheet of cutaneous muscular fibres covering the whole 
of the trunk, neck, and head. But what most strictly answers to the panniculus is 
that portion which reaches from the tail to the shoulders. This is of moderate thick- 
ness, evenly distributed over the surface of the back and sides of the body, and 
composed of highly coloured muscular fibres spread out in coarse bundles. 
Its attachments are as follows:—Posteriorly, the root of the tail, where, slightly 
aponeurotic, the fibres commence in a pointed manner and are fixed to the spines of the 
caudal and posterior sacral vertebre. From this forwards along the spine to as far 
as the shoulder may be said to be the long dorsal basal line of the origin of the 
muscle. From the hindermost peak at the root of the tail the muscular fibres trend 
forwards and outwards (fig. 14, P.c*) in the direction of the knee-joint, and, passing over 
and onwards from this, reach the inguinal region, where they terminate in a contracted 
manner, or merge into the fibrous fascia covering the inside of the leg. From the 
groin they stretch still forwards, but now a little upwards, and, following the curvature 
of the parts of the groin, pass on to the abdomen (P.c’) in the middle line, until they 
reach the outer margin of the pectoralis major, to which they are intimately united. 
The fibres derived from the remainder of the spine in the lumbar and dorsal regions 
(P.c') have a direction forwards and downwards, the posterior slanting direction be- 
coming more perpendicular from behind forwards towards the scapula. The broad 
layer above described, proceeding from the several origins, covers the whole of the side 
of the body; and the fibres, converging, proceed to the axilla (P.c*), and are inserted 
into the humerus. 
Continuous with the dorsal portion of the panniculus the short fleshy fibres stretch 
’ Steller, ‘ Ursus marinus,’ p. 341; Owen, “Phoca vitulina,” P. Z. 8. 1830-31, p. 151. 
