150 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



lower extremities of a still younger child. These drawings, moreover, 

 serve at the same time to illustrate two other vestigial characters, 

 which have often been previously noticed with regard to the infant's 

 foot. I allude to the incurved form of the legs and the lateral exten- 

 sion of the great toe, whereby it approaches the thumb-like character 

 of this organ in the Quadrumana. As in the case of the incurved 

 position of the legs and feet, so in this case of the lateral extensibility 

 of the great toe, the peculiarity is even more marked in embryonic 



FIG. 22. Lower extremities of a young child. Drawn from life, when the 

 mobile feet were for a short time at rest in a position of extreme inflection. (From 



Romanes.) 



than in infant life. For, as Professor Wyman has remarked with 

 regard to the foetus when about an inch in length, "The great toe is 

 shorter than the others; and, instead of being parallel to them, is 

 projected at an angle from the side of the foot, thus corresponding 

 with the permanent condition of this part in the Quadrumana." So 

 that this organ, which, according to Owen, "is perhaps the most 

 characteristic peculiarity of the human structure," when traced back 

 to the early stages of its development, is found to present a notably 

 less degree of peculiarity. 



