A LITTLE TALK ON BIRDS’ TOES. 165 
In these last there are normally five toes, all placed 
forward. The first and fifth are shorter than the 
others, and doubtless in the three-toed foot it was 
these marginal toes that were gone, just as @he-sstrreh 
«mel any mammals of to-day have lost those on each 
edge of the foot. 
Now, in the lizard’s hind foot the first toe has 
two joints; the second toe, three joints; the third 
toe, four joints; the fourth toe, five joints; and the 
fifth toe only four joints, as in the third. The bird 
omits the fifth toe, but its remaining four run exactly 
in the same order as to number of joints as the first 
four of the lizards do. 
If we did not consider these things we could not 
see why a bird now should seem (by the greatest num- 
ber of joints) to have its outer toe the most prominent, 
when it is usually its third or middle front toe, which 
is really the longest, strongest and most useful. The 
extra number of joints in the outer toe is simply a 
vestige of past prestige when this digit also was more 
centrally located. 
If we glance at a bird’s wing or a fish’s fin (even in 
pictures), we see that their long tips are always on or 
near the edge farthest away from the body. Flying and 
swimming strokes are made more effective by this ar- 
rangement, because the outer edge moves most and 
fastest. Hence, at a time when lizards were aquatic 
and a toe, like the ray of a fin, was simply an instru- 
ment to hang a swimming membrane upon, the outer 
was necessarily the longest, and this was manifested 
in the increased number of joints. 
14 
