ECLIPSE AND PERSIMMON 165 



It will not do to place a bone of this kind on a 

 sheet of glass between perpendiculars and measure 

 the distance from one perpendicular to the other ; 

 yet if you choose one projecting point as your point 

 of departure, your scientific friend is certain to 

 choose another, and his scientific friend may be 

 confidently betted on to choose a third ; and if 

 none of your friends are strictly scientific the 

 differences will be even more marked. After 

 taking counsel from the best biological authority 

 now living, I am inclined to recommend that when 

 a cup exists at one end of a bone, the deepest point 

 in the depression should be chosen ; and when 

 bosses exist, as in a ball joint, the highest point of 

 the ball should be selected. The lenoth of the 

 bone will then be the imaginary line running from 

 one of these points to the other, whether that line 

 leaves the actual margin of the bone at any point 

 in its length or not. It also seems preferable to 

 take the canon-bone (in both fore and hind legs) 

 as the unit or standard of comparison for the length 

 of the other bones. Vial de Saint Bel took the 

 22 in. of the head of Eclipse as his standard of 

 measurement for the whole body ; but, as we are 

 not told how he took his measurements, we really 

 get no further. 



" It must, however, be borne in mind that nothing 

 can be affirmed with regard to such points as the 



