The average lateral density distribution of muons in EAS initiated by cosmic-ray primaries of energy 10¹⁷ eV has been established. EAS whose measured muon content differs from that expected for an average shower are selected, i.e. muon-'poor' and muon-'rich' showers are isolated. An harmonic analysis in right ascension is performed on these different classes of muon-selected EAS. For muon-'rich' showers a certain consistency of phase in the first harmonic shows up at approximately 12 h right ascension. However, none of the derived first-harmonic amplitudes are significant statistically.