354 PEor. K. VON baedeleben on the [Apr. 17, 



mutilated from the loss of their fins, which were continually eaten 

 away by the Mud-fishes from each other. 



The mode of reproduction of Protoptenis seemed to be wholly 

 unknown, except as regards the information contained in an 

 article recently published in ' Le Mouvement G-eographique ' 

 (1894, p. 30), in which it was stated, from observations made by 

 the French Missionaries at Mpala on the western shore of Lake 

 Tanganyika (lat. 6° 45' S.), that the embryos of the Protopterus 

 (there called locally Sembe or Sompe) were carried about in an 

 elongated gelatinous sac attached to the sides of the back of the 

 parent and were very numerous. 



1. On the Bones and Muscles of the Mammalian Hand and 

 Foot. By Prof. Karl von BardelebeNj M.D. Berol. 



[Received April 16, 1894.] 

 (Plates XX. & XXI.) 



As the Committee of the " Anatomische Gesellschaft " has 

 asked me to give a Report on the Mammalian Hand and Foot at 

 the next meeting of the Society at Strassburg, I wish previously to 

 publish my own investigations on this subject made since 1885 

 at Jena, Leyden, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, and Paris, and 

 especially in 1889 and 1890 in the Natural History Museum, in 

 the Royal College of Surgeons, and in the dissecting-room of the 

 Zoological Society's Gardens in London, of which I have only pub- 

 lished short abstracts in the Proc. Zool. Soc. 18S9 (p. 259, pi. xxx.), 

 in the Anat. Anz. 1890, and in the Verhandlungen d. anat. G-es. 

 P. V. 1891. 



I have examined the distal parts of the fore aud hind limbs in 

 all orders of Mammals either in skeletons or in specimens dissected 

 by myself. 



Naturally I have paid greatest attention to the "praepollex" 

 and "prsehallux" and to the " postminimus " \ especially to the 

 muscles and other soft parts of these structures. Apart from 

 all theory, I think everybody may agree with me in calling a 

 bone or a thumb-Uke outgrowth on the radial side of the poUex 

 " prsepoUex," and a structure behind the minimus " postminimus." 



The name " sesamoid bone " is much more misleading, and as 

 I cannot agree that the structures I am speaking of are " sesa- 

 moids," or that they consist only of hone — for there are also soft 

 parts, such as muscles, vessels, nerves — I must use the abbreviations 

 Pp., Ph., and Pm. 



This paper will be divided into three parts : the first concerning 

 the skeleton, and the second relating to the muscles ; in the third 

 the bones and the muscles will be compared, and the conclusions 

 concerning the meaning of Pp., Ph., and Pm., and concerning 

 the homologies between the bones of hand and foot, will be given. 



^ I will use the abbreviations Pp., Ph., Pm. 



