[12] Édouard Cuyer, 'Shape of the Region of the Wrist in Supination and Pronation' (_Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie_, Paris, 1888).
In birds the forearm is flexed on the arm, and the latter being directed downwards and backwards, the former is, consequently, directed upwards and forwards. Further, because of the position of the humerus, which, as we mentioned on p. 32, has its inferior extremity so turned that the surface which is anterior in man becomes external, the radius, instead of being outside the ulna, is placed above it. This latter is larger than the radius, but its olecranon process is very slightly developed.
The hand in animals, as in man, is formed of three parts--the carpus, metacarpus, and fingers. In man, the forearm and the hand being described in the position of supination; the bones of the carpus are named in passing from the most external to the most internal--that is to say, from that which corresponds to the radial side of the forearm to that which corresponds to the ulnar side. In animals in which, as we know, but it is not unprofitable to repeat, the hand is in pronation, the radial side of the forearm being placed inside, we enumerate the carpal bones in counting the most internal as the first; this is the only method which permits us, in taking our point of departure from the human skeleton as our standard, to recognise the homologies of the bones of the carpal region.
These bones, eight in number, are arranged in two transverse rows, of which one, the first, is superior or antibrachial; the other, the second, is inferior or metacarpal. Each of these rows contains four bones. Considered in the order we have indicated above--that is to say, proceeding from the radial to the ulnar side--they are thus named: scaphoid, semilunar, cuneiform, and pisiform, in the first row; trapezium, trapezoid, os magnum, and unciform, in the second. The number of these bones is not the same in all animals on account of the coalescence or absence of some. In each row the bones are placed side by side, with the exception of the pisiform, which being placed on the palmar surface of the cuneiform, produces a small projection in man, but a very pronounced one in quadrupeds.