BY T. THOMSON FLYNN, B.Sc. 



183 



Megapodes, as in " Gallus," but is more powerfully 

 developed in the former. It is a well developed, trian- 

 g-ular muscle, rising fleshy along" the posterior third of 

 the preacetabular crest and from the hollow below this, 

 then passing directly over the head of the femur, rapidly 

 narrows to a pointed tendon, which is inserted into the 

 outer side of femur just below the trochanter above the 

 insertion of gluteus minimus. 



The obturator muscles (internal and external) show 

 nothing of special interest except that the area of prigin 

 of the latter is triangular. 



In the shank muscles, a special feature is the strong 

 ossification in some of the tendons, so complete that 

 often they may easily be broken in two with a sharp 

 blow. In the presence of this ossification almost all the 

 shank muscles are alike, but it is more particularly con- 

 fined to the peroneous longus, the tibialis anticus and 

 the soleus. 



M. extensor digitorum communis in the Megapodes 

 rises from the hollow between the pro and ecto-cneminal 

 crests of the tibia, partly also from the outer side of the 

 latter and from the upper third of the anterior face of 

 the bone. It passes, as usual, under the bony and liga- 

 mentous bridges at the proximal end of the tarso- 

 metatarsus. About two-thirds the distance down this 

 latter bone it bifurcates, forming an outer and inner slip. 



The latter passes to the base of the second digit, 

 where it again divides into an outer slip (A) and an inner 

 (B). (A) is ribbon-like, and divides into two, one of 

 which forms the fibrous bridge of slip (B), the other the 

 fibrous bridge at the base of digit iii. 



wSlip (B) divides also into two, the outer of which 

 crosses over the inner to become inserted into the base 

 of the second phalanx. The other division of slip (B) 

 passes along the outer side of the second digit to be in- 

 serted into the base of the ungual phalanx. The rest of 

 the tendon of M. extensor digitorum communis is dis- 

 tributed in the usual manner, dividing at the base of each 

 phalanx into two, one of which is inserted into the base 

 of each phalanx, the other continued onwards to the 

 base of the next. 



