80 ARBOREAL MAN 



In many races, the members of which are quite innocent 

 of wearing boots at any period of their lives, the little 

 toe is just as atrophic as it is in the average London 

 hospital patient, and in some unbooted native races it 

 is even more degenerated than is common in the booted 

 Londoner. Among the Malays, the absence of a nail 

 upon the remarkably stumpy fifth toe is not at all un- 

 common. The barefooted races in Nubia are no better 

 off in this matter, and even in the very primitive Sakai 

 the little toe has suffered. 



Vaughan Stevens has noted that the little toe of the 

 Sakai is not straight, but is " bent like ours," and is 

 small in proportion; but the Jakuns, according to the 

 same authority, have little toes which are straight (Skeat 

 and Blag den). 



I imagine that just as the big toe is becoming the 

 dominant toe, the little toe is becoming a rudiment, and 

 I presume that, in their turn, the fourth, third, and 

 second toes are undergoing a human evolutionary atrophy. 

 There is a most interesting anatomical feature which is 

 explained by this trend of human foot development. 



In the hand a system of short muscles, which serves 

 to part the fingers and close them together (M. interosseii), 

 is ranged symmetrically upon either side of the third 

 or middle digit. This digit therefore constitutes the 

 middle line of the hand from which, and to which, the other 

 fingers can be moved laterally. 



In the Monkeys, with the digital formula of the foot 

 similar to that of the hand, a like grouping of muscles is 

 seen about the third toe, which in movements, as well as 

 in length and axis, constitutes the middle line digit of 

 the foot. 



The same condition is seen in the Chimpanzee and 

 Orang-utan. In Man, however, the muscle symmetry is 

 ranged about the second digit, and to and from this second 

 digit the other toes are moved laterally. The middle line 

 of the human foot has changed from the third to the 



