ABOUT LEGS 3 



of evolution, but I am waiting till it shall become so. 

 We all develop in the direction of our tendencies, 

 and shall, I doubt not, be wise enough some day 

 to give animals leave to do the same. 



It seems strange that any creature, furnished with 

 such tricky and adaptable instruments to go about 

 the world with, should tire of them and wish to get 

 rid of them, but so it happened at a very early stage. 

 It must have been a consequence, I think, of growing 

 too fast. Mark Twain remarked about a dachshund 

 that it seemed to want another pair of legs in the 

 middle to prevent it sagging. Now, some lizards 

 are so long that they cannot keep from sagging, and 

 their progress becomes a painful wriggle. But if 

 you must go by wriggling, then what is the use of 

 legs to knock against stems and stones ? So some 

 lizards have discarded two of their legs and some all 

 four. Zoologically they are not snakes, but snakes 

 are only a further advance in the same direction. 

 That snakes did not start fair without legs is clear, 

 for the python has to this day two tell-tale leg-bones 

 buried in its flesh. 



When we pass from reptiles to birds, lo ! an 

 astounding thing has happened. That there were 

 flying reptiles in the fossil ages we know, and there 

 are flying beasts in our own. But the wings of these 

 are simple mechanical alterations, which the imagina- 

 tion of a child, or a savage, could explain. 



The hands of a bat are hands still, and, though 

 the fingers are hampered by their awkward gloves, 



