I06 WILD TRAITS IN TAME ANIMALS. 



patches represent the supplementary hoofs which 

 undoubtedly, among the ancient Equidae, used 

 to exist on each side of, and somewhat above, 

 the central hoof A little knowledge of equine 

 anatomy, however, shows this hypothesis to be 

 untenable. 



It is true that in every horse's leg one finds 

 vestiges of the bones which used to support 

 the extra toes, but these invariably show them- 

 selves in their proper places — that is, below the 

 knee and hock joints. Supposing the callosity 

 on the forelesf to be the remnant of the hoof 

 of the first or second digit (corresponding to 

 our thumb or index-finger), I cannot see how 

 it could possibly have got displaced so as now 

 to be situated considerably above the knee-joint. 

 One of our humble relatives, the colobus monkey 

 of Africa, has lost its thumbs as completely as 

 the horse has, but we should be very much 

 astonished if a vestigial thumb-nail were found 

 embedded in the skin, not at the spot from 

 which the thumb usually springs, but on the 

 forearm between the wrist and the elbow. 



An American gentleman who has travelled a 

 good deal in the East informed me that the 

 Arabs universally put forward an odd and rather 

 ingenious theory about the origin of these 



