512 USE OF PREHENSILE ORGANS IN LOCOMOTION. 



solved, until some source of power shall be discovered, far 

 surpassing that which his muscular strength affords, and so 

 portable in its nature as not materially to add to his weight. 



674. The only other organs of locomotion which we have 

 to c6nsider, are those of prehension. Of these, the principal 

 have been elsewhere noticed, with reference to their use in 

 laying hold of food and conveying it to the mouth ( 172), 

 and with regard to the differences between the hand of Man 

 and the claspers of the Quadrumana ( 643). The hand of 

 Man is seldom employed to assist in his locomotion, except 

 in swimming (where it serves the purpose of a fin), and in 

 climbing ; neither of which kinds of movement can be said 

 to be natural to him. But the claspers of the Quadrumana 



(fig. 254) are most efficient instru- 

 ments of locomotion ; enabling 

 them not only to grasp the branches 

 of the trees which they climb to 

 despoil them of their fruit, but 

 also to catch hold of them at the 

 end of a long leap. This they do 

 with the most wonderful agility ; 

 as all who have seen Monkeys in 

 circumstances at all like those of 

 their natural habitations, must 

 have observed. The Gibbons, or 

 long-armed Apes of the East Indies, 

 are probably the most remarkable 

 in this respect. The Author has 

 seen the Unglcaputi leap round and 

 round a room of about fifteen feet 

 square, catching at each side by 

 some small support attached to the 

 wall ; and taking its next leap (if 

 such it could be called) by merely 



Fig. 254.-^TiAEE. swinging itself from this, without 

 touching anything solid with, its 

 feet. There are many of the Monkey tribe, however, espe- 

 cially in the New World, whose hands are less efficient as 

 instruments of prehension ; and these are furnished with a 

 prehensile tail ; that is, a tail which can be coiled round the 

 branch of a tree, and by which the animal can suspend itself 



