68 STRUCTURE AND COMPARISON. 



fowl is cleanest, and also the feet which have been cut off 

 in dressing the fowl, you will be able to see wherein your 

 bones are like a bird's. 



Let us take the leg and compare it with our own. First, we 

 notice that there are the same number of joints, but not the 

 same number of toes nor of bones. I am not sure, however, 

 but you will disagree with me as to the number of the joints, 

 and we are likely to have trouble in naming them unless we 

 begin at the right end of the leg, first the hip, then the knee, 

 then the heel. But where is the bird's knee and where is his 

 heel? 



There is an old Greek tale that the rival philosopher, at- 

 tempting to make fun of Plato for calling man a featherless 

 biped, presented a cock plucked of his feathers to Plato's 

 students with the explanation that this was Plato's man. 

 Thoreau's ready-witted Canadian woodchopper thought that 

 the philosopher overlooked the fact that the coc^s knees bent the 

 wrong way. Most of us have the same impression that 

 a bird's knees bend the wrong way. But let us begin at the 

 hip and count downward, hip, knee, heel, and we shall 

 see where we find the chicken's knee. Where is his heel? 

 Where is a dog's knee? a horse's? a cat's? and which way 

 do they bend ? (Only remember that a four-footed creature's 

 fore legs are arms and their joints correspond to the joints of 

 our arm numbered from the shoulder.) A knee always hinges 

 forward, an elbow backward ; a wrist always hinges forward, 

 a heel backward. Therefore a horse's " fore knees " are his 

 wrists, and what you have been calling the chicken's knee 

 is really his heel. 



Having determined the principal joints, we may look at the 

 larger bones of the leg. There is the thigh-bone, which lies 

 between the hip and the knee, the shin-bone, or " drumstick " 



