154 
PROFESSOR A. MACALISTER ON THE 
Muscles of the Lower Limbs. 
The position of the parts in these limbs is so remarkable that a brief review of the 
arrangement is necessary before describing the muscles. The variation in position from 
the usual disposition of hind limbs in Mammalia may be described as twofold. 1st, 
the limbs instead of having suffered a rotation forwards from their embryonic position, 
have been rotated backwards, and this has caused the following peculiarities : the knee- 
joints are directed backwards and outwards, the tibial side of the leg inclines outwards 
and forwards, the fibular side inwards, the plantar surface of the foot is directed forwards, 
the outside of the femur is directed backwards and a little inwards, the adductor aspect 
of that bone looks forwards and outwards ; of its two tuberosities the lesser or tibial is 
external and anterior, the greater or fibular is internal and posterior ; the head of the 
fibula is defective. This remarkable disposition of parts, it will be seen, is precisely 
similar to the usual arrangement in the fore limb, and the guides to homologies derived 
from it are of extreme value. With the knee in the position of the elbow, the ulna and 
fibula, radius and tibia are thrown into precisely similar positions ; so are the great toe 
and the pollex, the external condyle (humerus) and the inner condyle (femur), and vice 
versa , the great trochanter and the lesser humeral tuberosity, the lesser trochanter and 
the greater tuberosity. Thus the system of homologies which Goodsir proposed, and 
which after him has been supported by Huxley, Mivart, Flower, and Humphry, receives 
an immense support from this arrangement. 
The second peculiarity in the hind limbs of the Cheiroptera is the position of the pelvis. 
The ala of the ilium is everted, so that the iliac fossa is anterior and external, the ilia 
rod-like, the pubes and ischia project forwards, and the lower outlet looks forwards. 
From these peculiarities in position it can easily be understood that the hind-limb 
muscles in some respects depart from the usual mammalian positions in some respects, 
as will be seen hereafter. 
Psoas magnus is a large muscle arising from the three uppermost lumbar vertebrae 
except the first in Cephalotes, from the lumbar vertebrae, sacrum, and side of the ilium 
in Megadermci , from the vertebrae and margin of the ilium in Cynonycteris. In Artibeus 
the muscle arises as in Megaderma , in Pteropus edulis it is attached to the lower lumbar 
vertebra only. Professor Humphry describes it in his specimen of Pt. Edwardsii as arising 
from the lumbar vertebrae external to the psoas parvus, from the front of the sacrum and 
from the ilium, passing under the pubic spine to the anterior trochanter of the femur. 
Meckel says its origin is from all the lumbar vertebrae ; and Cuvier, strangely enough, 
states that this muscle does not exist (Lemons, i. p. 359). 
Gluteus maximus (Plate XIV. fig. 14, h) is triangular and flat ; it arises from the poste- 
rior border of the crest of the ilium and sacral spines in Pteropus Edwardsii and in Mega- 
derma , from the sacrum alone in P. edulis, from the sacrum and first caudal vertebra in 
Noctulina, from the sacrum in Cephalotes, from the ilium and sacrum in Artibeus , from 
the sacrum and upper two caudal vertebrae in Cynonycteris ; it is inserted into the upper 
half of the thigh in Noctulina , the upper third in Megaderma and Bhinolophus as well as 
