20 THE PHYSICAL KINSHIP 



father, but another son was like ordinary men. 

 The man-like races have also longer arms in pro- 

 portion to the height of the body than man gene- 

 rally has. But this is also true of human infants 

 and negroes. The gibbon has relatively much 

 longer arms than the other anthropoids. It 

 differs from the chimpanzee in this respect more 

 than the chimpanzee differs from man. When 

 standing upright and reaching down with the 

 middle finger, the gibbon can touch its foot, while 

 the chimpanzee can reach only to the knee. Man 

 ordinarily reaches part way down the thigh, but 

 negroes have been known to have arms reaching 

 to the knee-pan (3). 



The skeleton of the African races contains many 

 characters recognised by osteologists as ' pithe- 

 coid,' or ape-like. It is massive, the flat bones are 

 thick, and the pelvis narrow. In the manlike apes 

 the large toe is opposable to the other four, and 

 is used by them much as the thumb is used. But 

 this difference between the two races of beings is 

 just what might be expected from the differences 

 in their modes of life. Man has little need of this 

 opposability on account of his exclusively terrestrial 

 life, while to the ape it is indispensable on account 

 of his arboreal environment and life. ' But there 

 are,' says Haeckel, ' wild tribes of men who can 

 oppose the large toe to the other four just as if it 

 were a thumb, and even new-born infants of the 

 most highly-developed races of men can grasp as 

 easily with their hind-hands as with their fore- 

 hands. Chinese boatmen row with their feet, 



