Many animals--the ELEPHANT, the RHINOCEROS, the HORSE and the OX--have no collar-bones; and they are only able to swing their fore limbs to and fro. They cannot execute any lateral movements. They cannot throw the limbs out sideways, nor press their fore feet together, so as to hold anything between them. If the horse wants to seize or hold any substance he must do it with his mouth. The Elephant has a special provision for the purpose of prehension in his trunk, which enables him to provide himself with food by pulling down the branches of trees. The LION and the TIGER can press their fore paws together sufficiently to enable them to hold their prey, and fix it upon the ground, while they put the head down to it and pull at it and tear it with their teeth; and they are furnished with rudimentary, or half, collar-bones suspended in the flesh of the upper part of the chest; while the little SQUIRREL, which sits upon its hind legs, and holds up the nuts between its fore paws to be nibbled, has complete collar-bones. So has the flying BAT, the climbing SLOTH and the digging MOLE. In BIRDS the collar-bones (fig. 56, AA) are very large; and, for the purpose of giving them greater strength, they are united together in the middle line just above the breast-bone, forming what is commonly called the “merry-thought;” and, as this is not sufficiently strong to resist the force of the powerful muscles which flap the wings and sustain the animal in the air, there are, in addition, stout “side-bones,” called by anatomists “coracoid bones.” These (B) run, from the breast-bone (D), in the same direction as the collar-bones, one, on either side, to the shoulder-blades (C); and they afford even more efficient support to the shoulders than do the collar-bones. The coracoid bones are peculiar to oviparous animals, or nearly so. In some reptiles, as the CROCODILE, they quite supersede the collar-bones. These few examples are enough to show that freedom of movement of the arms, especially of lateral movement, is closely associated with, and, indeed, is dependent upon the shoulder-blades being supported and steadied by bones, which extend from the breast-bone to the shoulder-blades, and fasten the one to the other.