98 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (2) 



action to grasp at something in order to steady itself is 

 particularly apparent : actually it would have got more 

 balance if it had stretched the hand out flat. 



Not only in children, but even in adults, may the effect 

 of our ancestors' bough-grasping habits be seen ; for it 

 comes natural to place the hands in a semi-clasped posi- 

 tion when they are at rest. 



When children are asleep, particularly if they are not 

 well — the time when reversion to ancestral habits would 

 be most apparent — it may be observed that they throw 

 the arms above the head, tightly clasping the hands. The 

 monkey holding the branch above its head is exactly what 

 this expresses. The fact was that the hands of our 

 arboreal ancestor had obtained a permanent set into the 

 bough-grasping attitude ; and that we have not yet lost 

 this till after the baby stage. This permanent set is so 

 observable in the hands of the Chimpanzee, the Gorilla, 

 etc., that now, though they have more or less abandoned 

 the arboreal life, and have not attained to the bipedal pro- 

 gression, so that they have to move with the help of all 

 four limbs, the " set " in the hands from bough-grasping 

 prevents their putting the hand down as the baby does in 

 figs. I and 7. " They walk on the outer margins of the 

 palms or on the knuckles " (Darwin). 



What are called " tht wonderful adaptations of Nature" 

 are often pointed to with astonishment to compel our 

 admiration. Therein is much misconception. The 

 adaptations are a matter of time and permanence of en- 

 vironment, and then are often only the making the best 

 of a bad job due to some previous episode of history. 

 Thus the anthropoid apes are examples of ill adaptation in 

 the matter of their fore-limbs : those limbs are fitted for 

 an arboreal life, and these apes have not been settled long 

 enough in any other form of life to get their limbs 

 thoroughly adapted thereto. In Homo clothed man is 



