124 Life of Lower Lake Region. 



the five toes growing from a wrist or carpus 

 of the fore limb. So plainly acceptable is this 

 statement that even the whale has this carpus 

 of the mammal hidden in his fore flipper with 

 its complete attachment to rudimentary toes. 

 Each toe is held to the wrist attachment in 

 mammals by a long slender metacarpal bone, 

 originally five to each hand, and the diverg- 

 ence of mammalian families was plainly se- 

 cured by divergent treatment of these meta- 

 carpal bones. The whole five were made to 

 start off with nearly equal development for 

 the bear, the cat and the dog. These meta- 

 carpals were started with the central one dom- 

 inant and the rest subordinate for the horse 

 family. Two were evidently started together, 

 with nearly equal development, for the needs 

 of the ruminants, the camel, the ox, the deer, 

 sheep and goats. Later, yet, the completion 

 of the plan calls for a mammal with one meta- 

 carpal to serve the purpose of a single digit, 

 and to secure this, natural causes were set to 

 work to make dominant the central meta- 



