June 21, 190/] 



SCIENCE 



983 



for small rodents at Berlin, where the animals 

 are seen burrowing, separated by glass from 

 the visitors. A full description was given of 

 the monkey-house, where the anthropoids are 

 also kept, at Rotterdam, and the details were 

 explained by means of the working plan; and 

 other places selected for praise in the garden 

 were the stores, workshops, and infirmary for 

 sick animals. The monkey-houses at Breslau 

 and Berlin were referred to as showing how 

 the difiiculty of access to the open from cen- 

 tral cages was got over by a passage the doors 

 in which could be opened by the animals. 

 The fine new block-house for deer at Breslau 

 was mentioned as one of the best in Europe. 

 In conclusion Mr. Trevor-Battye referred to 

 the greater use of glass on the Continent for 

 the protection of the animals, to the supply of 

 water to bears other than the Polar species, 

 and the better arrangements for lighting, and 

 said that when one considered the conditions 

 governing gardens in Great Britain the wonder 

 was, not that they should be surpassed in 

 some points, but that they should be carried 

 on half so well. 



A Friday evening lecture at the Eoyal In- 

 stitution was given recently by Sir James 

 Crichton Browne, on ' Dexterity and the Bend 

 Sinister.' According to the report in the 

 London Times he said that during the last 

 2,000 years there had been innumerable erup- 

 tions of ambidextral enthusiasm, and some five 

 years ago a new crusade on behalf of ambi- 

 dexterity had been started. He held, however, 

 that on the large scale ambidexterity was im- 

 possible and undesirable, that it was by the 

 superior skill of his right hand that man had 

 got himseK the victory, and that to try to 

 undo his dextral preeminence was simply to 

 fly in the face of evolution. Eight-handedness 

 was a very old story ; it was plainly discernible 

 in the art of Greece, Assyria and Egypt, 

 glimpses of it could be found among our an- 

 cestors in the Bronze age and in Paleolithic 

 times, and some observers had detected fore- 

 shadowings of it even among the lower ani- 

 mals. All nations, , tribes and races, civilized 

 and savage, had in all times preferentially 

 used not only one, but the same hand, and it 



was impossible to point to any civilized race 

 manifesting any degree of either-handedness ; 

 the statement that the Japanese were by law 

 and practise ambidextrous, he could say, on 

 the authority of Baron Komura, was without 

 foundation. It was doubtful, indeed, whether, 

 strictly speaking, complete ambidexterity ex- 

 isted in any fully developed and civilized 

 human beings, though sometimes very close 

 approximations to it occurred; but among 

 microcephalic idiots, in whom the small head- 

 edness was due to arrested development, left- 

 handedness and ambidexterity had been found 

 to reach a proportion as high as 50 per cent. 

 The source of right-handedness was much 

 deeper than voluntary selection, and must be 

 sought in anatomical configuration — in the 

 structure and organization of the brain that 

 initiated, directed and controlled all voluntary 

 movements. The brain had two hemispheres, 

 of which the right presided over the left side 

 of the body, and the left over the right side, 

 and it was clear that functional differences 

 in the two hands were in some way connected 

 with differences in the two hemispheres — dif- 

 ferences not of weight or blood supply, as had 

 been suggested by some inquirers, but of con- 

 volutional development. Study of the speech 

 center in the third frontal or Broca's convolu- 

 tion had thrown a flood of light on the subject 

 of right-handedness, for it had shown that 

 damage to this convolution in the left hemi- 

 sphere deprived the right-handed man of 

 speech, but left the left-handed man with 

 speech unimpaired, while in the left-handed 

 man the contrary held good. Here, then, there 

 was one-sidedness of the brain, assuredly not 

 due to use and wont, or to any acquired habit 

 or mechanical advantage. But the hand and 

 arm centers in the brain were intimately 

 linked with the speech centers, and therefore 

 it was only logical to infer that the preferen- 

 tial use of the right arm and hand in volun- 

 tary movements was also due to the leading 

 part taken by the left hemisphere. We could 

 not, he believed, get rid of our right-handed- 

 ness, try how we might. It was woven in the 

 brain; to change the pattern the tissues must 

 be unravelled. Ambidextral culture, useful 



