454 NATURAL EXPEDIENTS I OR SUPPLYING 
active exertions of all the fingers. For instance, when I 
proposed to him to thread a small needle, he immediately 
undertook the task, but rendered the labour far less 
complex and difficult, by previously availing himself of a 
very artful expedient. After delicately pressing the small 
instrument between the stumps, he lifted it up, and stuck 
the point of it into the felt of a hat, so as to fix it steadily 
in a vertical position. He then directed his attention to 
the thread ; retained it in like manner between the extre- 
mities of the stumps ; rubbed it with them, as the good 
housewife would with her finger and thumb, making 
it taper to a point, and, after this simple preliminary step, 
the task did not appear difficult to insinuate the silk through 
the small eye of the needle, — an operation which the lad 
accomplished on the first trial. 
Most of the labours which occupied the attention of 
Mark Yarwood, were not, however, to be achieved without 
pressing into service other organs of the body, the na- 
tural expedients of the boy being necessarily included in 
their combined aid. This is, indeed, an inference which 
cannot fail to arise, when it is kept in view that the 
stumps, like a solitary instrument of prehension, can, when 
brought into mutual contact, do nothing more than exe- 
cute the functions of a single thumb and the four fingers 
that act as its antagonists. In describing, then, the aid 
imparted to the ossa humeri, when motions were demand- 
ed, which in other individuals must require the con- 
currence of two hands, it may be readily conceived, 
that the various organs connected with the mouth would 
be among the most prompt of such auxiliaries. When, for 
instance, a substance is presented to Mark Yarwood, of 
such a shape as to require some particular adjustment be- 
fore it can be taken up, it is, if not too large, first seized 
by the lips or teeth, preparatory to its being placed on 
