102 The Museum Gazette 



sure of these details unless you get a patient, hopeful animal 

 which will keep its nose quite quiet in expectancy of biscuit. 



If by any chance you could persuade a hare or a rabbit, 

 or a rat, to let you look at its lips, you would find yet another 

 modification. In them the slip is not single and straight, 

 but in the form of the letter Y. In the fork of the Y is 

 included a bit of hair-growing skin which is joined above to 

 the middle of the nose, and forms part of what is technically 

 called "the columna." 



We forgot when looking at the zebra's lips to examine those 

 curious animals in a cage not far distant, the Tapirs. In the 

 tapir, as in all the pig family, not only is there no trace of a 

 slit, but the whole upper lip is prolonged into a snout. This 

 snout or modified nose and upper lip is movable and may be 

 curved downwards and backwards into the mouth. If you 

 watch a tapir you will see it pick things from the floor by 

 means of its nose and throw them into its mouth. 



Having seen what the tapir can do with its nose, it is not 

 a very long step to realise that the long trunk of the elephant 

 is, after all, only its prolonged upper lip and nose. 



It is of much interest to trace these various gradations of 

 modification in different animals, and to note the mutual 

 relationships which they imply. We may even remember 

 profitably that some human infants are born with what are 

 called " hare lips." In some of these instances the clefts are 

 similar to those observed as natural in certain animals. 

 They are examples of certain arrest in development and are 

 evidences of what is known as "recapitulation." 



