BABIES AND MONKEYS. 379 



strange. The baby is decidedly bowlegged, but tliis shape of leg 

 would be exactly that necessary for tree-climbing quadrumana. 

 When it is first stood up, the baby puts only the outer parts of its 

 feet to the ground, and turns its toes in. It does not allow its 

 heels to touch the ground. When a monkey walks on a branch 

 it does not allow the homologous part to our heel to touch the 

 branch. When a dog sits, as we call it, to beg, it really brings the 

 same part into contact with the ground as we do in standing. It 

 brings its hocks (heels) fiat to the ground, and supports its weight 

 oil the hocks and toes. Children are very fond of " sitting on 

 their heels " in the same manner as a dog when it begs. The dif- 

 ference between the begging attitude of a dog and the standing 

 of a child is in the straightening of the knee joints in the latter. 

 As a dog has not the power to straighten the knee joint, because 

 of its quadrupedal habits, it can not stand on its hocks as we can ; 

 as soon as it raises its body on its hind legs it elevates the hock 

 from the ground. The power to straighten the knee joint, and so 

 to put the hock to the ground, is not inherent in babies at first ; it 

 is only by practice in walking that they are able to acquire it. 

 Why, if babies' ancestors have always been animals walking on 

 their hocks, should these processes have to be gone through ? 



The movements and habits of a young baby seem so strange to 

 us because they are so different from those made by adults, and 

 because they are so unconsciously performed. Joy is expressed 

 by muscular movements, by wriggling of the hands and toes, or 

 by convulsive beatings of the arms, when it is small ; by " jig- 

 ging," when it is larger. These movements are expressive of joy 

 because to any animal of highly developed muscular energy 

 movement is absolutely essential, and particularly pleasing, while 

 stillness is the reverse. It is muscular excitement, chiefly no 

 doubt electrical, a heritage from ancestors who knew not what it 

 was to be still, that gives that restlessness to children and causes 

 them to find so much pleasure in mere motion and muscular exer- 

 tion of any kind. Jumping for joy is very literally correct of a 

 child's expression of pleasure. The prospect of a sweet will ex- 

 cite a series of leaps to indicate delight ; and they further serve 

 the purpose of relieving the tedium of waiting the half-second 

 necessary to the donation. The pleasure of finding a bird's nest 

 with eggs in it a pleasure which must have been very real some- 

 times in the case of hungry monkeys and savage man, but is now 

 only a survival of the instinct thus formed this pleasure a boy 

 expressed by a series of convulsive leaps into the air ; and during 

 the performance not only were the arms and legs moved as much 

 as possible, but the muscles of the stomach and vocal organs had 

 to be utilized to cause accompanying shouts. It may be remarked 

 that in adults, when limb-movements are less active, shouts are. 



