PARTS OF ANIMALS, IV. x.-xi. 



the foot. The polydactylous animals have no huckle- 

 bone, otherwise they would not be polydactylous, 

 and the divisions of the foot would cover only so 

 much width as the hucklebone itself. So most of 

 the animals which have a hucklebone are cloven- 

 hoofed. 



Man of all the animals has the largest feet for his 

 size, and reasonably so, since he is the only one of 

 them that stands upright, and as the feet have to bear 

 the whole weight of the body and there are only 

 two of them, they must be both long and broad. 

 Also the toes are short compared with the fingers, 

 and this too is reasonable. The business of the hands 

 is to take hold and to keep hold of things, and this is 

 done by means of that part of the hands which bends ; 

 therefore the fingers must be long. The business of 

 the feet is to get a firm and reliable footing ; and to 

 secure this the undivided part of the foot must be 

 greater than the toes. And it is better to have the 

 tip of the foot divided than not, for otherwise, if one 

 part were affected the whole foot would suffer as well, 

 whereas this is to some degree avoided by the divi- 

 sion of the tip of the foot into toes. Again, short 

 toes are less liable to injury than long ones would be. 

 All this indicates why the human foot has toes and 

 why they are short. There are nails on the toes for 

 the same reason that there are nails on the fingers : 

 the extremities have but little strength and there- 

 fore specially need to be protected. 



We have now dealt with practically all the blooded 

 animals that are viviparous and live on the land. 



XI. We now pass on to another class of blooded co Ovipara : 

 animals, the oviparous, some of which have four feet, OO^^erpents 



QQj quadrupeds. 



