On certain variations in the vocal organs of the passeres : that have hitherto escaped notice / Johannes Muller ; the translation by F. Jeffrey Bell ; edited, with an appendix, by A.H. Garrod.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On certain variations in the vocal organs of the passeres : that have hitherto escaped notice / Johannes Muller ; the translation by F. Jeffrey Bell ; edited, with an appendix, by A.H. Garrod. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    74/100 (page 66)
    In the Macrochires, iucludiDg the Trochilidae and the Cypselidae, as found in many genera and species, the arrangement is uniform. The fleshy belly runs on to a special tendon which springs from the lower end of the outer surface of the humerus (where the horizontal slip in the Passeres terminates), and is continued, parallel to the forearm, along the radial margin to the hand. The tendon of the tensor patayii brevis is not developed, being replaced by the fleshy continuation of the muscle. In Upu])a epops the arrangement is fairly simple. The main tendon runs past the free lateral margin of the long extensor to the ulnar superficial fascia, where it becomes lost. It sends forward a fasciculus from about its middle, to end like the similar band in the Meropidae. Its difference from the passerine arrangement is well marked. In the Bucerotidae, as found in several species of Buceros, Toccus, and Bucorvus, the only difference from Upupa is that the extra outer fasciculus is very much shorter. The lengthy tendon from the major pectoral is particularly large. In the Alcedinidae the diff'erences are so considerable and peculiar in the several genera that the muscle in this order has not been fully worked out as yet. In the Momotidae the condition is the same as in the Coraciidae, except that the outer tendon does not split, and therefore sends forward no wristward slip. This condition I have found in Momotus lessoni, in M. aequatorialis, in Eumomota superciliaris, and in Todus viridis. The extension onwards to the ulnar superficial fascia springs from the portion of the horizontal tendon intermediate between the points of junction of the two parallel long tendons, and is not a direct continuation of either. It is frequently very thin. As the Cuculidae and Musophagidae are frequently included together with the families above referred to, the arrangement of the short tensor in these birds must be mentioned. In all the Cuculidae the undivided tendon runs on to the ulnar superficial fascia without any com- plication. In the Musophagidae the whole tendon is comparatively feeble, and, if it were more definite at its margins, would be. exactly like that in Upupa. Next, with reference to the division of the order Passeres into minor sections. In 1831 the late Professor C. J. Sundevall discovered the important fact that is expressed in the 1872 edition of his valuable ' Methodi naturalis Avium disponendarum Tentamen' in the following words :—' Hallux per se mobilis. Musculus enim flexor hallucis longus articulum ejus ultimum flectens, a flexoi-e digitorum communi perfecte solutus. (In avibus reliquis omnibus tendo hujus musculi cum tendinibus alterius conjungitur. Hallux igitur simul cum reliquis digitis semper flectitur.)' Upupa epops, agreeing with the Passeres in this respect, is by the author included with them. Recently, however, I have found reason for overthrowing the character, because in the Eurylaemidae there is a strong vinculum which joins the two muscles exactly in the same manner as in many of the non-passerine families. Eurylaemus oeJiromelas, Cymhirhynchus macrorhynchus, and Calyptomena viridis are the species which I have examined (more than one specimen of each); and in all of them there is a narrow but strong vinculum, situated just above the metatarso-phalangeal articulations, and running from the tendon of the flexor hallucis longus downwards to the tendon of the flexor digitorum profundus. No other passerine bird which I have dissected possesses this vinculum.