3o6 NATURAL SCIENCE. Nov.. 



monkey, when he immediately jumped on the book and stamped on 

 it, as though he was anxious to stamp the monkey out." But, on the 

 other hand, he looked for a long time, apparently in admiration, at a 

 picture of the Three Graces. Our valued friend " Orpheus at the 

 Zoo " should read what Mr. Roper says about the susceptibility of 

 the animal to music. " Pains were taken," says Mr. Roper, " to 

 ascertain if he took any pleasure in the music of a band," not, we 

 should say, conclusive proof of the absence of a musical taste if he 

 did not. The resources of Belle Vue were taxed to the utmost, with the 

 only result that the ape ran away in disgust. This does not, however, 

 altogether destroy the myth of Orpheus, as Mr. Roper seems to think 

 it does. 



The Thumb in Civilisation. 



Dr. W. R. Whitehead, of Denver, Col., sends us a reprint 

 from a medical periodical of a paper he wrote entitled, " The Thumb 

 as an Initial Factor in Civilisation." We have considered it atten- 

 tively, but we have been unable to find in it any new contribution to 

 science. The author describes the peculiarities of the human thumb, 

 especially its possession of a separate flexor muscle, and he attempts 

 to attribute to the human power of opposing the thumb the 

 beginning of all man's civilisation and superiority over the ape. We 

 cannot, however, agree with him in his attempt to make so much of a 

 single peculiarity. " Counting on the fingers with the thumb," he 

 says, " was the initial effort that led to the discovery of the science of 

 the mathematics. Primarily, to draw on the ground with a stick a 

 triangle, to consider its sides and angles, and to discover some of its 

 properties were but additional steps in this direction." One could 

 count on the fingers without an opposable thumb ; and an opposable 

 great toe would be as convenient for drawing triangles upon the 

 ground ; while, even if the triangles were drawn by it, we do not see 

 how the opposable thumb would lead the ancestral man to consider 

 sides and angles. 



But Dr. Whitehead touches a matter of greater interest, and falls 

 into a greater error, when he makes the following statement : — " It 

 appears that the organs of apes which most resemble the same organs 

 of man are not all assembled in any one kind of ape, but seem to be 

 confusedly assigned to very dissimilar apes, and even to half-apes, as 

 if to oppose a barrier to those who shall attempt to trace a too near 

 kinship between these animals and man." It is, as he says, quite 

 true that the bridging brain-convolutions are present in spider- 

 monkeys, and, possibly, in the orang ; that lemurs have thumbs more 

 resembling those of man than are to be found in higher apes ; that, 

 indeed, analogues to the peculiarities of man are to be found scattered 

 here and there among the primates. But the old idea of arranging 

 modern groups in lineal series has long been abandoned ; no com- 

 parative anatomist would dream of seeking the ancestors of man 



