1S32 TEEMINAL PHALANGES OF THE PEIMATES 297 



such circumstances it is a great matter to have your 

 interesting work to set upon. 



My eye trouble entirely prevents me from carry- 

 ing on my experiments in heredity, except by deputy ; 

 this to me is most provoking, as they have been 

 yielding very interesting results ; and having now 

 trained my hands for the performance of the more 

 delicate among them, I am doubtful where I can 

 find the deputy which I need. I mention this in case 

 you should happen to know of any young physiologist 

 who, possessing some operative skill, would care to 

 join in the research. I am ordered six months' rest 

 from any kind of intellectual work, and as in any 

 case I could not finish the second instalment of my 

 work upon ' Darwin and After Darwin ' by means of 

 dictation, this will have to stand over until next 

 year. 



A new investigation is here described, 



94 St. Aldate's, Oxford : March 27, 1892. 



My dear Schafer, — I think I have found a new 

 ordinal character peculiar to the Primates — viz. a nude 

 condition of the terminal phalanges. This does not 

 occur in any other order of mammals that I have 

 looked at, but in all species of primates from Lemurs 

 to Man, as far, at all events, as I have been able to 

 examine. Now I w T ant to see whether hair-follicles, 

 or vestiges thereof, can be found in the terminal pha- 

 langes of any species of the order. So I am making 

 a number of sections of the skin of the backs of 

 the terminal phalanges of fingers and toes, of man 



