538 Mr. J. Wood on Variations in Human Myology. [May 23, 



fibula and the adjacent aponeurosis, as a distinct muscle ending in a 

 stout tendon, which passed under the annular ligament outside the 

 vessels, and was joined by the muscular fibres of the " massa carnea 

 Sylvii," and by the tendons of the perforans in the middle of the sole. 

 The fibres of its tendon passed exclusively to the three outer toes. In 

 No. 15 the "massa carnea" was replaced by a thick tendon attached 

 to the inner border of the tuber calcis. At its junction with the outer 

 tendon of origin, a small flat muscular belly was developed upon it. In 

 the right foot of No. 24, a tendon from the outer head of an otherwise 

 normal accessorius was joined to the superficial ov perforated tendon of 

 the middle toe, forming decussating fibres with others from the opposite 

 side of the latter in the usual way. Three out of the four abnormali- 

 ties in these muscles were found in female subjects. The com^XetQ flexor 

 accessorius longus was seen, however, in a male subject, as in the three 

 instances described last year. 



31. Lumlricales pedis. — A.11 the abnormalities in these muscles re- 

 sulted from deficiency. In two the fourth was absent, one on the 

 right side and one on the left. In one the second was wanted on both 

 sides. All were male subjects. 



. 32. Flexor irevis digitorim. — All the varieties of this muscle were 

 also from deficiency. In all the seven subjects afiected, the tendon to 

 the little toe was absent, and, in six out of seven, on both sides. In 

 one (No. 3) its place was supplied by a small fusiform slip of muscle, 

 arising from the outermost tendon of the flexor longus perforans. In 

 another (No. 4) the supplementary muscle arose by two slender fusi- 

 form bellies, one from the long flexor tendon, and the other from the 

 inner tubercle of the calcis, deeper than the fibres of the fiexorbrevis di- 

 gitorum. This, which the author looks upon as a transitional form to 

 the arrangement found in No. 3, and in the Apes and Monkeys, was 

 precisely like that given in the author's paper of 1865. In the rest of 

 the subjects no substitute to the missing tendon was found, though pos- 

 sibly a feeble development may have escaped observation in some of 

 them. Meckel has remarked on the frequent deficiency of this tendon 

 in the human foot, and also that it is not always supplemented by the 

 flexor perforans, comparing it to the usual deficiency of the flexor 

 brevis in the Monkeys, and its total disappearance in other Mammalia. 



33. Abductor ossis metatarsi qtcinti. — No less than 17 specimens of 

 this muscle, arising separately from the outer tubercle of the calca- 

 neum, and inserted into the tubercular base of the fifth metatarsal 

 bone, were found in the 36 subjects (very nearly one half). In three 

 subjects it was found on the right foot only, and in two, on the left 

 only. In the other 12 it existed on both sides. Ten of the spe- 

 cimens were found in the 24 males, and se^en in the 12 females, giving 

 a preponderance of frequency in the latter sex. This preponderance in 

 the female sex is still more striking, if the cases given in the author's 



