It is with the muscles that move the toes as it is with those that move the fingers. They are put mostly up in the leg, and their slender tendons, by which they pull, go down over the ankle to the toes, just as in the arm the tendons go over the wrist to the fingers. If the muscles of the toes were all put in the foot, they would make it very clumsy, and at the same time the leg would be ugly from the want of that fullness which it now has.
Ligaments of the wrist and the ankle.
Both at the wrist and the ankle the tendons are bound down very tightly. If this were not so they would be always flying out of place, stretching out the skin before them in ridges. This would be the case especially with the tendons that go to the toes. Every time that the muscles pulled on them, they would start out very much at the bend of the ankle if they were not firmly held by the ligaments.
The muscles are of many shapes—round, flat, long, short, etc. They are shaped to suit the work which they are to do.
They vary much in size also. Some are very large, and some are exceedingly small. How large are the muscles of the arm that wield the hammer and the axe! But how small are the muscles that work the musical cords in your throat when you speak or sing! These little muscles make all the different notes of the voice by pulling on these cords, and in doing this many of their motions are exceedingly slight.
Muscles in the ear.
You remember that in the chapter on the hearing I told you about the little bones in the ear. These have some very little muscles which move them. The bones and the muscles, a and b, are represented in the following figure. The muscles, you see, have tendons or cords to pull by, in the same way that the muscles in the arm have. Both the bones and the muscles are larger in this figure than they are in the body. As the bones are the smallest ones that we have, so it is with the muscles. Very small machinery is this part of the hearing machinery.
Large and small muscles in birds.
The birds that go swiftly on their wings have very large muscles to work them. This gives them the full, round breast which you see that they have. But the muscles that work the musical cords in their little throats, as they sing so sweetly, are so small that it is difficult to find them.