8 FEET AND HANDS 



brain that it may have had, as well as two, or even 

 three, of its five toes. 



To return to those birds and beasts with standard 

 feet, I find that the first outside purpose for which 

 they find them serviceable is to scratch themselves. 

 This is a universal need. But a foot is handy in 

 many other ways. A hen and chickens, getting 

 into my garden, transferred a whole flower-bed to 

 the walk in half an hour. Yet a bird trying to do 

 anything with its foot is like a man putting on his 

 socks standing, and birds as a race have turned their 

 feet to very little account outside of their original pur- 

 pose. Such a simple thing as holding down its food 

 with one foot scarcely occurs to an ordinary bird. A 

 hen will pull about a cabbage leaf and shake it in the 

 hope that a small piece may come away, but it never 

 enters her head to put her foot on it. In this and other 

 matters the parrot stands apart, and also the hawk, 

 eagle, and owl ; but these are not ordinary birds. 



Beasts, having twice as many feet as birds, have 

 learned to apply them to many uses. They dig with 

 them, hold down their food with them, fondle their 

 children with them, paw their friends, and scratch 

 their enemies. One does more of one thing and 

 another of another, and the feet soon show the effects 

 of the occupation, the claws first, then the muscles, 

 and even the bones dwindling by disuse, or waxing 

 stout and strong. Then the joy of doing what it 

 can do well impels the beast further on the same 

 path, and its offspring after it. 



