THE SKELETON 29 
axial continuation of the vertebral column. ‘Twelve years later, 
when the caudal appendage had reached the length of 12°5 cm., 
these could still be detected.’ 
I have to thank my friend and colleague, Professor G. B. 
Howes, for the knowledge of the 
third case.? It is described in the 
Scientific American of May 11th, 
1889, p. 296, where an engraving 
taken from a photograph is also 
given. Fig. 19 is a copy of this, 
and represents a young Moi, twelve 
years old, who possessed a_tail- 
like appendage 1 foot in length, 
and soft and smooth to the touch. 
As no skeletal elements could be 
felt, a prolongation of the vertebral 
column was certainly not present. 
It cannot therefore be considered 
a true tail, and this conclusion ap- 
ples to a large number of similar 
formations which have erroneously 
been regarded as tails [some of 
which are purely pathological and 
due to spina bifida]. 
With regard to the number 
of caudal vertebrz definitively 
formed in Man, Steinbach has ar- | 
rived at the following conclusions, 
after working upon a great ac- 
cumulation of material. 
The male embryo, from the end of the second month of intra- 
uterine life, has five post-sacral vertebree; and indications of com- 
Fie. 19.—‘‘ TatLeD”’ CHILD, Mot, 
AGED TWELVE. 
1 It is important also to note that similar reversionary formations have’ occasion- 
ally been observed in the Anthropoid Apes (Gorilla and the Orang), and this is the 
more remarkable, as in the latter the degeneration of the os coccygis, which consists 
as a rule of only three vertebre, has gone still further than in Man. [It is worthy 
of remark here that this same maximum reduction of the caudal vertebre to three 
occurs also in some Bats, and that the opposite extreme for the mammalian series is 
reached by a small insectivore from Madagascar (Microgale longicawdata) and the 
long-tailed Pangolin (Manis macrura) of the old world, in which the caudal vertebrae 
may be close upon fifty in number. ] 
2 [And I, in turn, have to thank my friend Professor Johnson Symington, of 
Queen’s College, Belfast, in conversation with whom my attention was first drawn 
to this case. —G. B. H.] 
