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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the surprise that tliis discovery created among the European 

 spectators, he informed us that his tail was the effect of climate, 

 for that all the inhabitants of the southern side of the island^ 

 where they then were, were provided with like appendag.es." The 

 cuneiform or Chaldean deluge tablet speaks of the gods, " with 

 tails hidden," crouching clown. A Culdee tombstone at Keills, 

 in Argyleshire, Scotland, bears among its figures one of hu- 

 man form, sitting down, and sleeking with his left hand a tail 

 that curls beneath his legs. 



Various stories have 

 been told of the tails 

 of the Niam Niams 

 of Central Africa, who 

 have also been asserted 

 to be cannibals. Their 

 tails have been described 

 as smooth and as hairy, 

 as peculiar to the men, 

 and as possessed by the 

 men and women both. 

 The most interesting and 

 circumstantial account of 

 this feature is given by 

 Dr. Hubsch, of Constan- 

 :inoi3le, who examined a 

 tailed negress. Her tail 

 ^vas abont two inches 

 Long, and terminated in a 

 point. The slave-dealer 

 who owned her said that 

 all the Niam Niams had 

 tails, and that they were 

 sometimes ten inches 

 long. Dr. Hubsch also 

 saw a man of the same 

 race who had a tail an 

 inch and a half long, cov- 

 ered with a few hairs ; 

 and he knew at Constan- 

 tinople the son of a phy- 

 sician who was born with 

 a tail an inch and a half long, and one of whose grandfathers had 

 a like appendage. The phenomenon, he said, is regarded gener- 

 ally in the East as a sign of great brute force. 



The newspapers, many years ago, had a story of a boy, who 

 was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, with a tail about an inch and 



Fig. 1.— Tah.i:i) .M,.i JJov. 



