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CHARACTERS OF INFANTS, AND WHAT THEY POINT TO. 
In early infancy the baby is distinguished by its receding 
forehead, pouch-like cheeks,* and protruding jaws,t in fact, the 
whole face slopes outwards from the top of the forehead, so that 
the jaws are really the most prominent feature. The nose is 
short, much depressed, almost flat with the face,t except the end 
which is rather suddenly protruded. The end is well described 
in popular language, which compares it to a little button; it is 
obliquely truncate; the nostrils are large and open, rather 
widely separated from one another, so that the end of the nose 
is very broad comparatively. 
When born, our infants have rather large heads; their 
shoulders and arms are much more pronounced in proportion 
to their size than in an adult; while on the contrary the buttocks 
and legs are of miserable dimensions. It is noticeable that 
growth is most pronounced in the legs after birth—which is 
not surprising, considering the shape the child has to attain. 
Dr Louis Robinson in a recent number of the “Nineteenth 
Century” § has given some curious facts with regard to infants. 
As the result of experiments on about 60 infants he found that 
“in each case, with only two exceptions, the child was able to 
hang on to the finger or a small stick three-quarters of an inch 
in diameter by its hands, like an acrobat from a horizontal bar, 
and sustain the whole weight of its body, for at least ten seconds. 
In twelve cases, of infants under an hour old, half-a-minute 
* See Plate, fig. 1. 
[tCertain African monkeys (Cercopithecus) have cheek pouches each side of 
the lower jaw, in which they stow food, as visitors to the Zoological Gardens 
may often notice, The baby’s cheeks may be relics from a monkey which had 
cheek pouches rather higher up. ] 
[ {In young infants there is very little bridge to the nose. Throughout 
life there is a progressive elevation of the bridge of the nose, (see Plate) while 
there is practically no growth in width. ] 
§ Nov., 1891, p. 838. 
