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Cn. XLIIL] 



SIX-FINGERED VAIIIETY OE MAN'. 



4 77 



thousands of generations, some favourable modifications may 

 not have taken place in this organ, giving to one race an 

 advantage over others, it may be well to allude to a singular 

 deviation from the normal standard which has been observed 

 in man, and some other of the mammalia, and which has 

 deservedly attracted much attention. This deviation consists 

 in the occurrence of six, instead of five digits, of which ex- 

 amples are found in the dog and the cat as well as in human 



beings. 



Mr 



o 



persons with extra digits on one or both hands or feet, which 

 he found recorded in various works or which had been 

 privately communicated to him, ascertained that in this 

 number, 73 hands and 75 feet were thus affected, proving, in 

 contradiction to previous opinions, that the hands are not 

 more frequently affected than the feet. Professor Huxley 

 cites in detail from Eeaumur the case of a Maltese couple 

 named Kelleia, who, having hands and feet constructed on the 

 ordinary human model, had born to them a son, Gratio, who 

 possessed six perfectly movable fingers on each hand, and six 

 toes, not quite so well formed, on each foot. This son mxar- 

 ried a woman with the ordinary pentadactyle extremities, and 

 of their children one had six fingers and six toes, and the 

 others were of the normal type, 

 three out of four of his 



The six-fingered son had 



children six-fingered. 



But v/hat 

 is more remarkable, two of Gratio's children of the normal 



married 



eneration the six-fingered 



theless reproduced in the next 



variety. Thus, although in each case one parent and some- 

 times both were five-fingered, the six-fingered variety per- 

 sisted down to the grandchildren of Gratio. If, observes 



Huxley 



same abnorm 



doubt that a six-fingered and six-toed race would have been 



In these cases it usually happens that the 



perpetuated. 



metacarpal 



mu 



so perfect as to escape detection, unless the fingers are 

 actually counted. Additional digits, says Darwin, have been 

 observed in negroes as well as in the white races. 



