The skeletal musculature of chick limb buds is derived from somitic cells that migrate into the somatopleure of the future limb regions. These cells become organized into the earliest muscle primordia, the dorsal and ventral premuscle masses, prior to myogenic differentiation. Therefore, skeletal-muscle specific markers cannot be used to observe myogenic cells during the process of premuscle mass formation. In this study, an alternative marking method was used to determine the specific stages during which this process occurs. Quail somite strips were fluorescently labeled and implanted into chick hosts. Paraffin sections of the resulting chimeric wing buds were stained with the monoclonal antibody QH1 in order to identify graft-derived endothelium. Non-endothelial graft-derived cells present in the wing mesenchyme were assumed to be myogenic. At Hamburger and Hamilton stage 20, myogenic cells were distributed throughout the central region of the limb, including the future dorsal and ventral premuscle mass regions and the prechondrogenic core region. By stage 21, the myogenic cells were present at greater density in dorsal and ventral regions than in the core. By stage 23, nearly all myogenic cells were located in the dorsal and ventral premuscle masses. Therefore, the two premuscle masses become established by stage 21 and premuscle mass formation is not complete until stage 23 or later. Premuscle mass formation occurs concurrently with early chondrogenic events, as observed with the marker peanut agglutinin. To facilitate the investigation of possible underlying mechanisms of premuscle mass formation, the micromass culture system was evaluated, to determine whether or not it can serve as an accurate in vitro model system. The initially randomly distributed myogenic cells were observed to segregate from prechondrogenic regions prior to myogenic differentiation. This is similar to myogenic patterning in vivo.