Coracle

“ There is but one seat, or thwart, as the coracle is designed for only a single occupant, though in a pinch it can accommodate two. This is a thin board, placed nearly amidships, partly supported by the wicker rail, and in part by another piece of light scantling, set edgeways underneath.
In all things ponderosity is as much as possible avoided, since one of the essential purposes of the coracle is “portage;” and to facilitate this it is furnished with a leathern strap, the ends attached near each extremity of the thwart, to be passed across the breast when the boat is borne overland. ”

“ Some considerable practice is needed to enable a new hand to conduct, or, as it is called, drive a coracle—not a little caution is required in both getting in or out. It is best, if possible, to depart from some shallow sand-spit, or gravel bed, where the coracle may be shoved off into deeper water, after the tyro has taken his seat, and established the proper balance. ”

“ She is not a beauty, or he would have made his adieus in a very different way.
CHAPTER XXVI. THE POACHER AT HOME.
Coracle Dick lives all alone. If he have relatives, they are not near, nor does any one in the neighbourhood know aught about them. Only some vague report of a father away off in the colonies, where he went against his will; while the mother—is believed dead.
Not less solitary is Coracle's place of abode. Situated in a dingle with sides thickly wooded, it is not visible from anywhere. ”

“ A Welsh coracle for one passenger upsets so easily that a stroke from a salmon’s tail is said to be more than the cranky little boat can bear without being overturned. One person forms a full freight for a coracle of the usual size, besides the one who uses the paddle ”

“ But what is of interest is that the British wicker coracles were covered with hides to make them watertight, that they had keels and gunwales, and that they were small enough to be used as shields if necessary, their dimensions being rather over 4 feet in length, with a breadth of about 3 feet, and a depth of a trifle over 12 inches. They were big enough to carry one man of average size. ”

“ Lying anterior to the interclavicle and overlapping its antero-lateral margins lie the two clavicles, which are usually diamond-shaped and are sculptured, dermal bones. The position of the coracoid is still uncertain, and in fact its clear association in the pectoral girdle of these species is still a question. It seems to be constant in the European (186, 251) species and is usually represented by a small rounded plate of bone, which in life no doubt had a large amount of cartilage to form its borders. ”

“ The solidity of this base of the pectoral spine is further augmented by the intimate union of the coracoid and scapula, which often extends to junction by suture, or even to coalescence; and these bones, moreover, give off two bony arches—the first a slender one, arising from the salient edge of the coracoid near the pectoral fin, and going to the interior face of the scapular that is applied to the interior surface of the ascending branch of the clavicle; the second and broader supplementary arch is often perforated by a large hole ”

“ In birds whose power of flight is strong, the two limbs of this bone are widely separated and thick, and the fourchette is U-shaped. Those whose flight is awkward and but slightly energetic have the limbs of the fourchette slender; they unite at a more acute angle, and the bone is V shaped.
Furthermore, a bone named the coracoid joins the scapula to the sternum; this bone, often fused with the scapula, where it contributes to the formation of the glenoid cavity, represents in birds the coracoid process of the human [27] scapula. ”

“ Location.—The coracoid is located just back of the clavicle and at the side of the entrance of the thoracic cavity. It is the strongest bone of the shoulder girdle, extending upward, outward, and forward. It articulates inferiorly with the sternum and superiorly with the humerus and the scapula, and is attached to the superior end of the furcular limb by a fibrous cartilage. ”

“ M. supracoracoideus, Fig. 5. The origin is from the dorsal two-thirds of the keel and medial half of the sternum (where the origin is bordered ventrally, posteriorly, and laterally by the origin of M. pectoralis thoracica) and from the sterno-coraco-clavicular membrane adjacent to the coracoid. This large pinnate muscle converges, passes through the foramen triosseum, and inserts by means of a strong tendon on the dorsal surface of the humerus on the deltoid ridge. ”

“ The ulna has a hook-like head, the olecranon (o.) which distinguishes it easily from the distally thickened radius. The limb is attached to the body through the intermediation of the shoulder-blade (scapula, sc.) a flattened bone with a median external ridge with a hook-like termination, the acromion (acr.) . There is also a process overhanging the glenoid cavity (g.) wherein the humerus articulates, which process is called coracoid (co.) ; it is ossified from two separate centres, and represents a very considerable bone in the bird, reptile, and frog. ”

“ The coracoid bone is notched above the pectoral fin, the notch being terminated below by a spine, and above by an acute corner. There are no scales between the cranial ridges on the top of the head, nor in the concave inter-orbital space. A single row of five or six scales traverses the cheek below the infra-orbitar ridge. The temples before the upper limb of the preoperculum are densely scaly, as is also the gill flap above the upper opercular ridge. ”

“ Examining for this purpose the humeral extremity of the bone, and collecting all the examples, I found it was composed of two elements ossified together, these elements concurring on one edge to form an articular cavity. Of these elements the broader and shorter one, which extended toward the sternum, was coracoidian in form, and perforated in each of four specimens. If, as appeared now to be the case, this was the coracoid, surely the great heavy bone so long called by that name was a pelvic bone, and the restoration of the skeleton must proceed on an entirely new basis. ”

“ Post-temporal more or less distinctly forked, more or less firmly ankylosed to the skull; scapula and coracoid well developed, in contact with each other or separated by cartilage; pectoral rays inserted {695}on the scapula and on 3 or 4 large, hour-glass or anvil-shaped pterygials, two of which are in contact with the coracoid. Ventral fins close together, with 1 spine and 3 to 5 soft rays. Spinous dorsal strong, usually longer than the soft, sometimes extending on the head; anal usually with 3 spines. Body covered with scales or naked. ”

“ And Amphis says, in his Ialemus—
Whoever eats a sea-born coracinus
When he may have a grayling, is a fool.
But the coracini of the Nile are very sweet and delicious in their flesh, as those who have tried them know; and they have got their name from continually moving their eyes (διὰ τὸ τὰς κόρας κινεῖν) , and never ceasing. But the Alexandrians call them plataces, which is, more correctly speaking, the name of the whole genus.
82. There is also a fish called the cyprinus, or carp. He also, as Aristotle tells us, is a carnivorous and gregarious fish ”

“ The coracoid is one of the most characteristic bones of the bird’s skeleton. Its upper end forms the acrocoracoid process, against the inner surface of which leans the proximal portion of the clavicle. ”

“ It is evident that the greater the length of the coracoid the less able would it be to resist the strain brought upon it, and it is also evident that the simultaneous downward stroke of the wings must have a tendency to force the coracoids inwards, or towards one another. Obviously the greater the strain the greater the need of strengthening or bracing the coracoid to resist it, and there are in the shoulder girdle of a bird various devices looking towards this end. ”

“ A third bone, or possibly two, on each side, are represented in most mammals by mere vestiges, which early unite with the scapula to form the coracoid process. In the lowest living mammals, of which Ornithorhynchus and Echidna are the only examples, there are in addition to the clavicles three well-developed bones on each side, the scapula and two bones articulating with it at its lower end, the anterior of which, originally named epicoracoid by Cuvier, is generally known as the procoracoid ”

“ In the cold-blooded Saurians,—in which the confluence of the separate elements of a vertebra takes place tardily and imperfectly, if at all,—the nature of the so called perforation of the transverse process is very clearly manifested, as in the cervical vertebræ of the Crocodile, in which the interspace of the inferior and superior transverse processes is closed externally by a separate short moveable cervical rib. ”

“ The posterior of the two coracoids also disappeared in late Triassic times, in reptiles at least, though a vestige may possibly be present in our own shoulder girdle. The scapula, clavicles, and anterior one of the two coracoids, the so-called procoracoid, are still present in most reptiles; in snakes only are they wholly absent, though much reduced and non-functional in some lizards. ”

“ Left scapula in lateral (G) and medial (H) views. Dashed lines represent suggested missing areas. The scapular blade would have been oriented at approximately 45° to the coracoid. The cranio-dorsal margin of the coracoid was most-likely very thin as the corresponding region of the cranial fossa is only 1–2 cm thick. The distal end of the scapular blade is expanded to a similar degree to that of the proximal end. Caudal of the scapular glenoid expansion, the scapular blade expands into a small tuberosity, a ventro-medial process below the scapular ridge. ”

“ In the German genera it closely resembles specimens from the Cambridge Greensand.
23 specimens are exhibited. Nos. 4, 10, 12, are the middle parts of shafts of left coracoids. Nos. 3-12, 22, are the middle parts of shafts of right coracoids. Nos. 2, 5, 14, are proximal ends of left coracoids. Nos. 1, 6, 8, 9, 23, are proximal ends of right coracoids. Nos. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, are distal ends of left coracoids. No. 13 is a nearly perfect left coracoid, and No. 7 is the glenoid cavity for the humerus formed by a right coracoid with the anchylosed scapula.
SCAPULA.
Pl. ”

“ There is a fish called the coracinus. The coracini, which are caught at sea, says Icesius, contain but little nourishment; but they are easily secreted, and have a moderate supply of good juice. But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, says that "it happens to nearly all fish to have a rapid growth, and this is the case, in no small degree, with the coracinus; and he lays his eggs close to the land, in places full of weeds and moss." But Speusippus, in the second book of his treatise on Similitudes, says that the blacktail and the coracinus are much alike. ”

“ The bones uncovered, and now lying upon the chalk slab nearly in their natural relations, are a humerus, both radii and ulnae, a pteroid, the two carpals of one wrist, both wing metacarpals, a first and a last wing phalanx, both coraco-scapulae, the posterior part of the lower jaws, ilium, femur, sternum, numerous ribs and vertebrae. The two coraco-scapulae lie with their scapular ends nearly touching, and their coracoid ends separated by a space equivalent to the width of the sternal articulation. ”

“ It is known to human anatomists as the coracoid process of the scapula. It has been found, however, by Professor Howes [19] and others, that this process really consists of two separate centres of ossification, forming two separate bonelets, which in the adult become firmly ankylosed to each other and to the scapula. These two separate bones have been met with in the embryo of Lepus, Sciurus, and the young of various other mammals belonging to very diverse orders, such as Edentates and Primates. The separation even occasionally persists in the adult. ”

“ Is it not the very place for a richly carved surs (corbel) ?”
“Ay, that is it, that is it! A corbel which should spring from the pillar, and follow the line of the arch. We must reflect on this, Master Gervase, and they shall be of finest cutting, and each varying from the other. But we may not think of this yet awhile, for truly there is enough on hand to call for all thy skill and industry. How fair it looks, with the winter sunshine striking on the fair stonework! ”

“ In both families the vessels that are relatively constant in appearance are: a subclavian giving rise to the carotid and axillary arteries, and becoming the pectoral trunk; the thoracic artery arising variously, and passing posteriorly to the rib cage; and the coracoid complex of vessels. The coracoid complex includes the coracoid artery, the vessels to Mm. sternocoracoideus and coracobrachialis posterior, and the sternal artery, which is variously present, and more extensive in some species than in others. ”

“ In Primates the clavicle and coracoid process are always well developed. In Man and the Gorilla the scapula has a long straight suprascapular border, a well-developed coracoid process and spine, and a large curved acromion. Vestiges of the precoracoid occur at each end of the clavicle. The shape of the scapula varies much in the lower Primates.
The Upper arm and Fore-arm.
In the Monotremata the humerus is short, very broad at each end and contracted in the middle. The radius and ulna are stout and of nearly equal size, while the ulna has a greatly expanded olecranon. ”

“ There are present, distinctly preserved in the type specimen, the scapulæ, the clavicles, and the interclavicle, with the possibility of the coracoid. The peculiar element referred to by Cope as resembling a "lacertilian pubis" is without doubt the left scapula of the animal (plate 16, fig. 1) . Its form compares very favorably with that of Ceraterpeton as figured by Woodward (630) . The coracoid may be represented by the fragment which lies close to the scapula. The sculptured element lying next to the supratemporal horn of the skull is the right clavicle preserved bottom side up. ”