Each muscle has its own set of blood-vessels, lymphatics, and nerves. It
is the blood that gives the red color to the flesh. Blood-vessels and
nerves on their way to other parts of the body, do not pass through the
muscles, but between them. Each muscle is enveloped in its own sheath of
connective tissue, known as the fascia. Muscles are not usually
connected directly with bones, but by means of white, glistening cords
called tendons.

[Illustration: Fig. 30.--Striated (voluntary) Muscular Fibers.

A, fiber serparating into disks;
B, fibrillæ (highly magnified);
C, cross section of a disk
]

If a small piece of muscle be examined under a microscope it is found to
be made up of bundles of fibers. Each fiber is enclosed within a
delicate, transparent sheath, known as the sarcolemma. If one of
these fibers be further examined under a microscope, it will be seen to
consist of a great number of still more minute fibers called
fibrillæ. These fibers are also seen marked cross-wise with dark
stripes, and can be separated at each stripe into disks. These cross
markings account for the name _striped_ or _striated_ muscle.

The fibrillæ, then, are bound together in a bundle to form a fiber, which
is enveloped in its own sheath, the sarcolemma. These fibers, in turn, are
further bound together to form larger bundles called fasciculi, and
these, too, are enclosed in a sheath of connective tissue. The muscle
itself is made up of a number of these fasciculi bound together by a