168 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. VI. 



apoplexy, inflammation of the bowels, and cataract in the 

 eye. The younger ones, when shedding their milk-teeth, 

 often died from fever. Medicines produced the same effect 

 on them as on us. Many kinds of monkeys have a strong 

 taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors ; they will also, as 

 I have myself seen, smoke tobacco with pleasure.&quot; He also 

 tells us of baboons which, after taking too much beer, &quot;on 

 the following morning were very cross and dismal, held their 

 aching heads with both hands, and wore a most pitiable 

 expression : when beer or wine was offered them they turned 

 away with disgust, but relished the juice of lemons.&quot; He 

 also notices the process of development in man, with the 

 transitory resemblances it exhibits to the immature con 

 ditions of other animals, and he mentions certain muscular 

 abnormalities. 



As to the process of development : 



&quot; Man is developed from au ovule, about the 125th of an inch in 

 His embry- diameter, which differs in no respect from the ovules of other 

 on ic develop- animals. The embryo itself, at a very early period, can 

 hardly be distinguished from that of other members of the 

 vertebrate kingdom. At this period the arteries run in arch-like 

 branches, as if to carry the blood to branchiae, which are not present 

 in the higher vertebrata, though the slits on the sides of the neck 

 still remain marking their former position. At a somewhat later 

 period, when the extremities are developed, the feet of lizards and 

 mammals, wings and feet of birds, no less than the hands and feet of 

 man, all arise from the same fundamental form.&quot; 



Amongst other points he adds : 



&quot; The heart first exists as a simple pulsating vessel ; the excreta are 

 voided through a cloacal passage ; and the os coccyx projects like a 

 true tail, extending considerably beyond the rudimentary legs.&quot; Vol i 

 p. 16. 



Again, as to more or less useless parts which represent 

 important structures in lower animals, he says : 



&quot; Rudiments of various muscles have been observed in many parts 

 of the human body; and not a few muscles, which are regularly 

 present in some of the lower animals, can occasionally be detected in 

 man in a greatly reduced condition. Every one must have noticed the 



