OCR Text |
Show 1894.] FLEXOR MUSCLES IN BIRDS. 497 there is a difference of great interest. The three tendons of the perforated flexors have relations to the outer and inner heads of the muscle exactly as in the Crane. The ambiens is absent in the Heron, and in place of the heads from the ambiens a broad tendinous band arises from the fibula and is distributed to the three parts of the muscle, precisely as the ambiens is distributed in those birds which have it. I had the advantage of being able to show the actual dissection to m y friends Mr. F. E. Beddard and Mr. Parsons, who are experts in muscular anatomy, and they both agreed with me that the relations of this slip from the fibula strongly suggested that it was a surviving vestige of the distal end of the ambiens tendon. Fig. 2. Dissection of the right leg of Nycticorax gardeni, seen from the outer side. Lettering as in fig. 1. In Eclectus roratus, from a dissection of which fig. 3 (p. 498) was drawn, a similar possible relic of the ambiens is present. In that Parrot the relations of the perforated flexor of the fourth digit to the inner and outer heads of the muscle and to the tendinous band from the fibula are exactly as in the Heron. The outer head of the tendon to the third digit is represented by only a few muscular fibres, and the inner instead of the outer head of the tendon of the second digit is present, but both these tendons have a strong connection with the tendinous band from the fibula. |