190 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



strength in grasping and in sustaining weights, 

 powerful muscles were indispensable ; and muscles, 

 to be strong, must be large, or of considerable length. 

 Now, had muscles of the necessary magnitude to 

 move the fingers with power been situated in the 

 palm, or on the back of the hand, they would have 

 rendered it thick and clumsy, and its lightness, mo- 

 bility, and beauty would have been destroyed. To 

 prevent this unsightly clumsiness, and also to give 

 them a more powerful purchase from their length, 

 the muscles which move the fingers are disposed of 

 in the arm, some of them as high as the elbow-joint. 

 They act on the fingers by means of long narrow 

 tendons, like ribands, which are firmly strapped 

 down at the wrist by a cross band of muscle, to 

 prevent their rising out from the arm, as the tendons 

 called the hamstrings do at the back part of the 

 knee-joint, in consequence of not being thus bound 

 down. This, however, is only part of the mechanism. 

 The tendon or cord which draws the ends of the 

 fingers inwards to the palm, and which is inserted a 

 little short of the nail, would have also started out 

 inconveniently from the finger, like the string of a 

 bow, had it not been bound down in the same way. 

 On the inside of the fingers, however, a strap like 

 the one at the wrist would have been too clumsy. 

 Instead of this, the tendon or cord of the tip or end 

 joint passes through a slit in the tendon of the second 

 joint, which prevents it from starting out from the 

 bone. Nothing could have been better provided for 

 uniting lightness, mobility, and strength. 



The thumb is a very important part of the hand, 

 and is, at least so far as strength is concerned, 

 almost peculiar to man ; for, in the hands of apes 

 and lemurs, the thumb is small and feeble (Eusta- 

 chius says it is altogether ridiculous), and cannot act, 

 as in man, in opposition to the combined force of the 



