sumed that the structure of the muscles would not unfrequently present corresponding modifications.[1]
In the following remarks, I have first described each muscle as it appeared in the Orang, and I have then compared it with the accounts given of the corresponding muscle in the Magot, Cebus, and other Quadrumana, and, lastly, with any similar variations which I have found recorded as occurring in man.
The works to which most frequent reference is made are— Recherches d'Anatomie comparée sur le Chimpansée, par W. Vrolik; M. Duvernoy's Memoir on the Myology of the Gorilla and other Anthropomorphous Apes, Archives du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, tom. viii.; Encyclopédie Anatomique, traduit d' Allemand par A. J. L. Jourdan, tom. iii.; Mr. J. Hallett's Paper in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, 1847; Anatomie Comparée, Recueil de Planches du Myologie, dessinées par G. Cuvier; Prof. Owen, Proceedings of the Zoological Society, vol. i.
I have confined my remarks almost entirely to the muscles of the anterior and posterior extremities, as they are the most subject to variations in the various orders of the Mammalia.
The Orang was a young specimen, and its muscles were but feebly developed, forming a very strong contrast to those of the Magot, which was an old individual, and very muscular. The age of the Orang may perhaps account for some of the differences between my dissections and those of Prof. Owen and M. Duvernoy.
The Muscles of the Anterior Extremity.
The inferior portion of the Trapezius arose from ten dorsal vertebræ, and its fibres did not communicate with those of the Latissimus dorsi, as they do in the Chimpanzee.[2]
The Rhomboidei Major and Minor were fused together, as in the Chimpanzee: in the latter animal this muscle does not reach the occipital bone, but the Orang in this respect resembles the Inui and Cynocephali.
The Levator Scapulæ, called Trachelo-scapularis by Duvernoy,[3] is inserted into the four anterior cervical vertebræ. This muscle is described by Duvernoy as having one digitation inserted into the occipital bone, another fusing with the sterno-mastoid, and three others into the cervical vertebræ. In the Gorilla, he describes three distinct fascicles; one of which is inserted into the transverse process of the Atlas, the other into the second, third, fourth, and fifth cervical vertebræ. In the Magot, he describes it as I found it in this Orang.
- ↑ Mr. Simpson noticed an undue shortness of the thumbs in the western Eskimos, and the absence of calf and flatness of the thighs has been often noticed in wild races by travellers.
- ↑ Rech. d'Anat. Comp. sur le Chimpansée, par W. Vrolik, p. 17.
- ↑ Duvernoy, Archives du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, tom. viii. p. 74.
