HANDS AND FEET. 285 



in some deformed people and certain savage tribes. In these, 

 however, the great toe is not opposed to the other digits as the 

 thumb is, though it has greater mobihty and power of divari- 

 cation — a thing which may be remarked in infants generally. 



When we glance at the actions of other animals, we see that 

 very different parts may be used for prehension, locomotion, and 

 support from those which are applied to these purposes in our- 

 selves. Thus all birds grasp with their beaks and feet, and not 

 with the parts which correspond with our arms and hands, such 

 parts in them being exclusively devoted to aerial locomotion. 

 Again, Spider Monkeys not only can support themselves by their 

 tails, — which grasp strongly enough to bear the weight of the 

 whole body, — but will take hold of some desired object with the 

 tail and then carry it to the hand or mouth. Mr. Bartlett has 

 observed them to succeed in thus obtaining an object otherwise 

 out of their reach ; he has also observed the Flying Fox 

 {Pteropus) take hold of food with its lower extremity, or foot, 

 and eat from it. 



The lips of the Horse and the tongue of the Giraffe are 

 prehensile organs, but especially prehensile is that curious 

 enormous prolongation of nose and upper lip together which 

 constitutes the " trunk " of the Elephant. This wonderful organ 

 has in the Indian Elephant a little finger-like process at its 

 extremity, and it is an amazingly delicate organ for what may 

 by analogy be well called manipulation. With these various 

 hand-like uses for parts which are altogether different anatomi- 

 cally from our hands, we may contrast the assignment in other 

 animals of parts which do anatomically answer to our hands, to 

 the functions of locomotion and support exclusively. Such is 

 the case as regards the anterior extremities (anatomically hands) 

 of horses, oxen, sheep, pigs, hippopotami, rhinoceroses, ele- 

 phants, &c. It is owing in fact to this exclusively locomotive 

 use of them that such parts are commonly sj)oken of by us as 

 the " fore feet " of horses, oxen, &c. 



Thus disputes are inevitable (and great disputes have in fact 

 arisen) as to what parts in non-human animals should be called 

 " hands " and what " feet." For example : — Seeing that the 

 lower extremities of apes, lemurs, and opossums have a great 

 toe which is almost or quite as opposable to the other pedal 

 digits as is our thumb to our fingers, their extremities have very 



