152 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



to the feet and great toes. Again, as Dr. Robinson observes, the 

 attitude, and the disproportionately large development of the arms 

 as compared with the legs give all the photographs a striking resem- 

 blance to a picture of the chimpanzee "Sally" at the Zoological 

 Gardens. For "invariably the thighs are bent nearly at right angles 

 to the body, and in no case did the lower limbs hang down and take 

 the attitude of the erect position." He adds, "In many cases no 

 sign of distress is evinced, and no cry uttered, until the grasp 

 begins to give way." 



MAN 



GORILLA 



FIG. 24. Sacrum of gorilla compared with that of man, showing rudimentary 

 tail bones of each. Drawn from nature. (From Romanes.) 



5. Tail. The absence of a tail in man is popularly supposed to 

 constitute a difficulty against the doctrine of his quadrumanous 

 descent. As a matter of fact, however, the absence of an external 

 tail in man is precisely what this doctrine would expect, seeing that 

 the nearest allies of man in the quadrumanous series are likewise 

 destitute of an external tail. Far, then, from this deficiency in man 

 constituting any difficulty to be accounted for, if the case were not 

 so i.e., if man did possess an external tail, the difficulty would be 

 to understand how he had managed to retain an organ which had been 

 renounced by his most recent ancestors. Nevertheless, as the anthro- 



