Arboreal Man 



541 



ternal care is carried still further. 

 Many observers have noted the human 

 manner m which the Gibbons attend 

 to their young, and the mothers have 

 been seen to take their babies to the 

 water and carefully wash and dry them 

 (Bock) ; even the Gorilla has Vieen seen 

 to correct its offspring by boxing its 

 ears when it misbehaved (Koppenfels) . 

 Not only is the display of maternal 

 care much more marked in all these 

 higher arboreal Primates, but it is 

 exercised for a much longer period than 

 in any other animals. Arboreal Prim- 

 ate babies have a very long babyhood 

 and a long infancy. The baby Gibbon 

 (Hylcbates lar) clings to its mother for 

 about seven months (Blanford), and 

 it is not fully mature until it is four- 

 teen or fifteen years old (Hartman). 

 Th3 young Orang-utan is dependent 

 upon its mother for about two years, 

 and is not fully adult until it is fifteen 

 (Foroes). 



"This prolongation of infancy, and 

 the period of youthful dependence, has 

 probably a rather widely reaching in- 

 fluence. It calls for a much more 

 prolonged exercise of parental care and 

 control, and causes these attributes to 

 be more or less permanent character- 

 istics, rather than periodically recurring 

 manifestations of an instinct. Again, 

 the prolongation of infancy may be 

 said to be the especial factor which 

 created the family as a social unit. 

 In almost all the higher vertebrates 

 it is the habit of the male parent to 

 remain with the mother during the 

 helpless early stages of the offspring, 

 and in many instances (in several 

 orders) he even plays his part in caring 

 for the young during their most de- 

 pendent ptriod. In the Primates, the 

 share that the male takes in the duties 

 of parenthood has often been noted. 

 The males have repeatedly been seen 

 to can-y the young on their arboreal 

 journeys, and it has even been asserted 

 that the male of the Siamang Gibbon 

 {Hylobates syndactylus) always carries 

 the baby if it be a male, the female 

 parent carrying only the female off- 

 spring (Diard). 



FOUNDATION OF THE FAMILY 



"In whatever degree parental duties 



AN EGYPTIAN TOE 



The atrophy of the Httle toe in many 

 tnodern feet is sometimes supposed to be 

 due to wearing boots. But it seems to be 

 a general evolutionary trend, which is 

 tending to reduce the human foot to a 

 single toe (the first or big toe). This 

 foot of an Egyptian mummy of the XX 

 dynasty, about 1300 B. C, shows that 

 the little toe was in a deplorable state even 

 then, centuries before boots appeared in 

 Egypt. The last phalanx is diminutive and 

 its joint is ankylosed. Photograph from 

 Dr. Gorgy Sobhy, School of Anatomy, 

 Cairo. (Fig. 5.) 



to the helpless offspring are discharged 

 by the male arboreal Primate, it is 

 evident he is only fulfilling a general 

 biological law; but it also follows that 

 if infantile helplessness is prolonged, 

 his parental duties are liable to a 

 similar extension. Here is evidently 

 the beginning of that association of 

 mother, father and child which, last- 

 ing beyond a brief period comprised in 

 courtship, the suckling of helpless young, 

 and the guarding of mother and off- 



