| OCR Text |
Show 1881.] ANATOMY OF THE EPOMOPHORI. 691 very restricted backwards-and-forwards motion ; the epihyals are lozenge-shaped, expanded, as in E. franqueti, but quite flat, and give attachment to the same muscles as in that species; but their infero-external extremities are not produced into prominent cornua as in that species; for there are no mylo-hyoids to support, the place of these muscles being taken by the united anterior bellies of the digastrics, which extend across as a thick muscular fold from side to side, and so far back as to cover the body of the hyoid bone, to which, however, it is not attached, being connected only with the superficial fascia extending backwards over the sterno-hyoid muscles. Fig. 6. bli Ti,i/ Hyoid bones and muscles of Epomophorus macrocephalus (enlarged). b.hy, basihyal bone; th.hy, thyrohyal bone; cer.hy, ceratohyal bone, small, almost ankylosed with the prominent anterior margin of the basihyal ; ep.hy, epihyal bone, dislocated forwards, showing its flat, or very slightly concave, outer surface; st.hy, stylo-hyoid muscle; g.hy and hy.gl, gonio-hyoid and hyo-glossus muscles passing forwards over the prominent anterior margins of the basihyal and ceratohyal bones. On dividing and reflecting the digastrics the genio-hyoid muscles once come into view, arising from the body of the hyoid bone posteriorly, and passing forwards over the prominent flat edge of its produced anterior part, as over a pulley, being there also supported on a pad of dense ligamentous tissue which occupies part of the space in front of the epiglottis, arising from the inner sides of the box-like compartment formed by the expanded hyoid bones, and extending also laterally outwards as a thick ligamentous band on each side across the articulation of the epihyal with the ceratohyal bone, and between the former and the fleshy tendon of the hyo- |
