ACQUIRED CHARACTERS AND MUTATIONS 77 



From one point of view this is a calamity even for cats. 

 Think, then, of the misfortune it is for human beings ! Yet 

 such cases are on record. Professor Scott gives the photo- 

 graph of a boy who began life with six fingers on each hand 

 and six toes on each foot. His father had had the same num- 

 ber. One of his brothers had extra toes, another brother had 

 extra toes with one extra finger on his left hand, a sister had 



RADIOGRAPH OF NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HAND 



Notice that one hand has three joints to each finger, while the other has but two. 



(Photograph by Drinkwater.) (From " Mendel's Principles of Heredity," by 



W. Bateson) 



extra toes only, while five brothers and sisters had perfectly 

 natural hands and feet. The condition of having too many 

 fingers is called polydactylism. 



Besides this there is brachydactylism. The word itself means 

 " short-fingeredness." All we know about the following case is 

 that the woman had two joints instead of three joints to each 

 finger. She married a man with perfectly normal, three- 

 jointed fingers. They had eleven children, and facts are known 



