SUMMAR Y OF ' PHILOSOPHIE ZOOLOGIQ UE: 303 



wanted more legs they could not have made them, the 

 answer is that the attempt to do this would be to un- 

 settle a question which had been already so long settled, 

 that it would be impossible to reopen it. The animal 

 must adapt itself to four legs, or must get rid of all or 

 some of them if it does not like them ; but it has stood 

 so long committed to the theory that if there are to be 

 legs at all, tlfbre are to be not more than four, that it is 

 impossible for it now to see this matter in any other 

 light. 



The experiments of M. Brown Sequard on guinea 

 pigs, quoted by Mr. Darwin,* suggest that the form of 

 the serpent may be due to its having lost its legs by 

 successive accidents in squeezing through narrow places, 

 and that the wounds having been followed by disease, 

 the creature may have bitten the limbs off, in which 

 case the loss might have been very readily transmitted 

 to offspring ; the animal would accordingly take to a 

 sinuous mode of progression that would doubtless in 

 time elongate the body still further. M. Brown Sequard 

 •' carefully recorded "■ thirteen cases, and saw even a 

 greater number, in which the loss of toes by guinea 

 pigs which had gnawed their own toes off, was imme- 

 diately transmitted to offspring. Accidents' followed 

 by disease seem to have been somewhat overlooked as a 

 possible means of modification. The missing forefinger 

 to the hand of the potto t would appear at first sight 

 to have been lost by some such mishap. Eeturning to 

 Lamarck, we find him saying : — 



* ' Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. i. p. 467, &o, 

 t See frontispieco to Professor Mivart's ' Genesis of Species.' 



