74 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



prehistoric ancestors did the same ; and I 

 am glad to think that this view has the 

 high authority of your great statesman, 

 Mr. Canning, who considered, as I have 

 before pointed out, that the tails of your 

 anthropoid ancestors " gradually rubbed 

 off from long sitting in their caverns or 

 huts." Here I must not omit to men- 

 tion that Darwin says " According to 

 popular impression, the absence of a tail is 

 eminently distinctive of man ; but as these 

 apes that come nearest to man are 

 destitute of this organ, its disappearance 

 does not specially concern us. Never- 

 theless, it may be well to own that no 

 explanation, as far as I am aware, has 

 ever been given of the loss of the tail by 

 certain apes and men." * 



The second question is not so easily 

 answered, on account of the conflicting 

 evidence which history has brought to 

 light. The savans, like doctors, prover- 

 bially are at issue on this very point. 



* Descent of Man, i. 150. 



