682 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



experience of life, he liung by both hands to my forefinger for ten 

 seconds, and then deliberately let go with his right hand (as if to 

 seek a better hold) and maintained his position for five seconds 

 more by the left hand only. A curious point is, that in many 

 cases no sign of distress is evinced, and no cry uttered, until the 

 grasp begins to give way. In order to satisfy some skeptical 

 friends I had a series of photographs taken of infants clinging to 

 a finger or to a walking-stick, and these show the position adopted 

 excellently. Invariably the thighs are bent nearly at right angles 

 to the body, and in no case did the lower limbs hang down and 

 take the attitude of the erect position. This attitude and the dis- 

 proportionately large development of the arms compared with the 

 legs, give the photographs a striking resemblance to a well-known 

 picture of the celebrated chimpanzee " Sally " at the Zoological 

 Gardens. Of this flexed position of the thighs, so characteristic 

 of young babies, and of the small size of the lower extremities as 

 compared with the upper, I must speak further later on ; for it 

 appears to me that the explanation hitherto given by physiolo- 

 gists of these peculiarities is not altogether satisfactory. 



I think it will be acknowledged that the remarkable strength 

 shown in the flexor muscles of the forearm in these young infants, 

 especially when compared with the flaccid and feeble state of the 

 muscular system generally, is a sufficiently striking phenomenon 

 to provoke inquiry as to its cause and origin. The fact that a 

 three-weeks-old baby can perform a feat of muscular strength that 

 would tax the powers of many a healthy adult — if any of my 

 readers doubt this let them try hanging by their hands from a 

 horizontal bar for three minutes — is enough to set one won- 

 dering. 



So noteworthy and so exceptional a measure of strength in 

 this set of muscles, and at the same time one so constantly present 

 in all individuals, must either be of some great utility now, or 

 must in the past have proved of material aid in the battle for 

 existence. Now it is evident that to human infants this gift of 

 grip is of no use at all, unless indeed they were subjected to a 

 severe form of an old south of England custom, which ordered 

 that the babe, when three days old, should be lightly tossed on to 

 the slope of a newly thatched roof, that it might, by holding on to 

 the straw with its little hands, or by rolling helplessly back into 

 the arms of its father, assist in forecasting its future disposition 

 and prospects in life. Barring the successful passing of this 

 ordeal — with regard to which I have never heard that non-suc- 

 cess was a preliminary to immediate extinction — it seems plain 

 that this faculty of sustaining the whole weight by the strength 

 of the grasp of the fingers is totally unnecessary, and serves no 

 purpose whatever in the newly born offspring of savage or civil- 



