ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE OF ANTHROPOID APES. 147 



and the sacrum a powerful lesser sacro-sciatic liga- 

 ment (ligamentum spinoso-saarum). 



The well-known anatomist, J. F. Meckel, has 

 asserted that the depression in the head of the 

 femur (fovea capitis), which serves for the insertion 

 of the round ligament (ligamentum teres), is absent 

 in the chimpanzee and orang, and he adds that 

 it is also absent in the gibbon. In a skeleton of 

 a young chimpanzee which had not shed its milk- 

 teeth, and of which the ligaments were also pre- 

 served, Welcker found a fully developed round 

 ligament inserted almost in the centre of the head 

 of the femur. This agrees in every particular with 

 the same formation in man. On the other hand, 

 no trace of a round ligament was to be found in 

 the hip-joint of a young orang-utan. The cartila- 

 ginous envelope of the head of the femur was smooth 

 throughout, without any indication of a place for in- 

 serting the ligament. Welcker again found no such 

 depression inthefemurof an aged maleorang-utan,nor 

 was there any trace of it in another aged male orang, 

 designated as Simia Morio. Welcker believes that 

 he has established the fact that the round ligament 

 is wanting in the orang-utan, but that it is present 

 in the gorilla, chimpanzee, and gibbon. The same 

 naturalist remarks that, although we may certainly 

 assume that the round ligament is absent wherever 

 there is no depression in the head of the femur, yet 

 the existence of such a depression in the acetabulum 

 (fovea acetahuli) is not enough to prove that a round 

 ligament was inserted in it. The innominate bones 

 of an adult orang-utan were examined by Welcker, 



