ABOUT HANDS. 



By CHARLES HEDLEY. 



Wr judge a stranger by his clothes or his behaviour, by his language or his face. From these we form 

 our opinion of his character, his education or his position in society. But a shrewd observer does not 

 fail to look also at his hands, since they, too, show much character. We recognise the artistic hand, 

 the practical hand, or the negligent hand. Often a hand shows its trade or habits. How much would 

 Sherlock Holmes deduce from looking at his friend's hand ? A stain here means a cigarette smoker, 

 a callus there means a cobbler. Any actor, to say nothing of a charlatan or a criminal, knows that it 

 is easier to disguise the face, the voice, or the dress than the hands. Often a magistrate will direct the 

 police to examine the hands Of an accused to see if he has lately done any hard work, or not. Thus 

 the hands may tell the true story of a man's habits orjjusiness, where other features might be mis- 

 leading. 



And it is the same with animals. Finding a strange animal, we examine its face and teeth and 

 fur to ascertain its habits and relationships. But to decide for certain what he is, we must say to our 

 new acquaintance, whether man or beast. " Mold out your hand." And then we learn the truth. 



Here is a wide paw. with a web of skin from one finger-tip to the next ; the Seal's hand. We 

 know the owner for a swimmer. Here is another hand, also webbed from tip to tip, but far wider and 

 lighter, and with slender bones no thicker than a bit ol string : the Hit's hand. He is a flyer. Here 

 is a short and muscular hand, with strong, sharp, hooked claws : the Tiger's hand. He is a slayer. 

 And here is a thick hand, with stout, blunt claws : the Badger's hand. He is a digger. Here is a 

 soft, slender hand, with long and supple fingers : the Monkey's hand. He is a climber. Lastly, 

 here is a hand from which most of the fingers have been lost, and the nails of those that remain have 

 thickened into hoofs : the Horse's hand. He is a runner. 



All these are variations of a mammalian hand. But I remind you that long ages before a 

 mammal had appeared on the earth, the Reptiles had produced the swimming hand in the turtle, 

 the slaying hand in the crocodile, the climbing hand in the lizard, and the flying hand in the pterodactyl. 



In the beginning animals were not four-footed but four-handed, as the frog, the rat and the monkey 

 are to-day. The foot came as a special development of the hand, and just as it gained a better tread, 

 so it lost the power to grasp. 



First the animal walked flat on the soles of his feet, like a bear does. Then he improved by going 

 on tip-toe, like a dog or a cat, and so gained the ability to run and jump better. Still progressing, he 

 became a specialist in running, and, having turned all his hands into feet, he gradually dropped his 

 superfluous toes one after another till he had only two left to each foot, like an antelope, or but one 

 toe apiece like a horse. Cats and dogs have five fingers, but only four toes. 



Indeed it was quite a usual event in evolution for an animal to lose some of the original five 

 fingers or toes with which it began. The Spider Monkey, from South America, has lost its thumb, 

 and an African monkey, the Colubus, also found its thumb superfluous, and got rid of it independently. 

 Originally, as has just been said, the horse had five toes, and in the long series of extinct horses found 

 fossil in America, the transition from five toes to three toes, and then to one toe is perfectly shown. 



Other animals, on the contrary, make for themselves a fifth hand. Thus the 'possum wraps 

 his tail around a bough, and then swings from it easily, as do some South American monkeys. The 

 elephant " handles " his food with a long, flexible trunk, which, in fact, is his nose. 



