80 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



without considerable expense and trouble 

 that the matter was accommodated." * 



All these authorities seem to support the 

 Darwinian theory that men once possessed 

 tails ; but that the present race, with some 

 exceptions, resembling angels' visits, " few 

 and far between," no longer has that 

 appendage which in certain animals, like 

 the peacock and bird of Paradise, is so 

 becoming to their personal appearance, 

 and the loss of which some of your savans 

 appear to be now so vainly deploring. 

 The successive steps by which Darwin has 

 persuaded himself into the belief of such 

 a remarkable change in the structure of 

 mankind may be briefly noticed here. 

 As his theory depends on proving your 

 descent from some less highly organised 

 form, he points out the presence of certain 

 rudimentary structures in man which con- 

 nect the human body with many other 

 animals, such as the convoluted substance 

 from which springs the tail of the monkey, 



* Essays, by Francis Gosse, F.K.S., p. 19. 



