22 CHARLES MIDLO AND HAROLD CUMMINS 



At the site of a pad a configuration of one or another 

 morphological type may occur; in the construction of the 

 drawings representing the basic plan it was of course neces- 

 sary to select arbitrarily a specific configuration type for each 

 of the areas. It should be mentioned also that the supplanting 

 of patterns by open fields does not involve necessarily the 

 loss of recognizable adherence to the basic plan. In the palm 

 of Tarsius (figs. 9-12), for example, the open fields in the inter- 

 digital areas are separately indicated, each field lying on a 

 discrete interdigital pad. Even in the lack of such discrete- 

 ness of interdigital pads, as in the human palm (figs. 587-588), 

 the morphological areas may still be recognized when the 

 configuration is reduced to an open field, boundaries being 

 provided by triradii and their radiants. When pad reduction 

 is carried to an extreme (as in Hylobates, figs. 459-498) such 

 boundaries of interdigital configurational areas are character- 

 istically absent, but the occasional occurrence of boundaries, 

 and even the rare appearance of a pattern, give sufficient basis 

 for descriptive regional divisions corresponding to the funda- 

 mental plan. 



Whipple designates as a " false pattern" one which lies 

 in a depression rather than on a pad. These false patterns are 

 in no sense less true patterns, as distinguished from open 

 fields, than are patterns lying on pads. Whipple 's intent was 

 to emphasize that such configurations are morphologically 

 unrelated to the so-called primary and secondary patterns 

 which occupy pads. The parathenar pattern conforms to her 

 definition of a false pattern. It lies, whether in palm or sole, 

 in the proximal portion of the central area, in the sunken 

 region between the hypothenar and thenar eminences. Even 

 when a pattern is not elaborated in this region the open field 

 of the parathenar area is often distinctively outlined. The con- 

 sistency of expression of a parathenar configuration, be it 

 pattern or open field, may be interpreted as a correlate of the 

 fairly uniform occurrence of a valley between the hypothenar 

 and thenar eminences. 



