XXXVl PEOCEEDINGS, 



whom she was very jealous, begged for a share. Sally took the 

 banana, peeled it, and ate it with great deliberation, and then 

 passed the skin round in front of the gibbon. He seized it and 

 then in a great rage flung it down, while she smiled delightedly 

 at him. 



Some of the peculiarities possessed by man and the apes, but 

 by no other animals, were then enumerated. " We " only possess 

 thumbs, most monkeys, but not all, having four; "we" are the 

 only animals who have finger-nails, the nails in all animals lower 

 than the apes forming claws or being thickened or expanded into 

 hoofs. But a further important item of agreement in the structure 

 of our hands had just been discovered. The back of the hand 

 is covered with hair, a growth quite as marked in some men with 

 strong sinewy hands as in the orang-utan ; the first joint of 

 the finger is laden with hair also, and there are several short 

 hairs on the second joint; but on the terminal joint not even 

 a microscope will enable us to detect any hair, nor has there ever 

 been any on it. This peculiarity is strictly confined to " us," the 

 apes. Every other animal with a furry paw is furred right to 

 the tips of the fingers and toes, for this applies to both. And with 

 regard to the foot, he did not think that the first toe forms a 

 thumb in the anthropoids ; he doubted whether they had more 

 power of opposition with the toes than has a new-born child ; 

 nor did he think that their feet were more prehensile than ours 

 would be if we used them freely instead of shutting them up 

 in leather boxes. 



Our teeth, also, are the same as those of the anthropoid apes, 

 not only in number (32) but also in kind and in arrangement ; 

 and the number of first teeth (milk teeth) is the same (20) and 

 they are shed at about the same period. The olfactory organs 

 are similar ; and " we " (the apes) are the only creatures with eyes 

 which are encased in bone and look directly forward, the eyes 

 in all other animals being more or less divergent. Then there 

 is a little bone wedged in between the two upper jaw-bones 

 (or maxillary bones) which in most animals remains distinct 

 throughout life, but in man and the apes is welded in so as to 

 form part of the upper jaw. Again " we five " (man, gorilla, 

 chimpanzee, orang-utan, and gibbon) have our right lungs quite 

 free, while in all other animals one lobule of this lung is wedged 

 in between the heart and the diaphragm. 



Passing from structure to habits, Mr. Stradling mentioned that 

 we are naturally left-handed, as are the monkeys, but we are 

 educated from childhood to use the right hand more than the 

 left; that we have many diseases in common; that "we" are 

 the only animals naturally unable to swim ; the only animals afraid 

 of snakes ; and it had been said the only animals who readily 

 develop a taste for alcohol and smoke tobacco with pleasure. 

 Other points of agreement between us were also mentioned, such 

 as the ability to use tools. 



With regard to the points of distinction between man and the 



