80 Darwin, and after Darwin. 
[ “ The great toe is shorter than the others; and, instead 
_ of being parallel to them, is projected at an angle from 
the side of the foot, thus corresponding with the per- 
‘manent condition of this part in the Quadrumana!.” 
So that this organ, which, according to Owen, “ is 
perhaps the most characteristic peculiarity in the 
human structure,’ when traced back to the early 
stages of its development, is found to present a 
notably less degree of peculiarity. 
(4) Hands.—Dr. Louis Robinson has recently 
observed that the grasping power of the whole human 
hand is so surprisingly great at birth, and during the 
first few weeks of infancy, as to be far in excess of 
present requirements on the part of a young child. 
Hence he concludes that it refers us to our quadru- 
manous ancestry —the young of anthropoid apes being 
endowed with similar powers of grasping, in order to 
hold on to the hair of the mother when she is using 
her arms for the purposes of locomotion. This in- 
ference appears to me justifiable, inasmuch as no 
other explanation can be given of the comparatively 
inordinate muscular force of an infant’s grip. For 
experiments showed that very young babies are able 
to support their own weight, by holding on to a 
horizontal bar, for a period varying from one half to 
more than two minutes*. With his kind permission 
I here reproduce one of Dr. Robinson’s instantaneous, 
and hitherto unpublished, photographs of a very young 
infant. This photograph was taken after the above 
paragraph (3) was written, and I introduce it here 
because it serves to show incidentally—and perhaps 
1 Proc. Nat. Hist. Soc., Boston, 1863. 
2 Nineteenth Century, November, 1891. 
ex 
