THE LIMES 



149 



(patella or knee-cap), which is wanting in the fore 

 limb. 1 



This general description will include such different 

 limbs as those of a man, a seal, a bat, and a horse, all 

 formed on the same common plan, but all modified for 

 the different purposes they have to fulfil. We must 

 now treat in greater detail the peculiarities of the limbs 

 of the horse, and to render them more intelligible 

 another form is required for comparison. We will 

 therefore take that with which we are all most familiar, 

 and commence with a comparative account of the bones 

 of the fore limb in man and in the horse. 



Comparison of the Skeleton of the Fore Limb 

 of the Horse with that of Man 



To begin with the shoulder-girdle. In the full- 

 grown man this consists of two bones, the scapula or 

 £ true shoulder-bone,' or c blade-bone 5 (which is itself 

 composed in infancy, and in some animals permanently, 

 of two separate bones, the scapula proper and the 

 coracoid), and the clavicle or 'collar-bone,' a strong 

 curved bar, united at its outer end with the scapula, 

 and at its inner end with the sternum or breast-bone. 

 The scapula is of complex shape, with strong pro- 

 jecting processes. In the horse (see Frontispiece) the 



1 For fuller description of the correspondences and differences 

 of the bones of the fore and hind limbs, see the author's Osteology 

 of the Mammalia, p. 361, 3rd ed., 1885. 



