FINGERS AND TOES. 
97 
on its thumbs and claws on all its other fingers, Vandeleura 
has a delicate little nail on both the thumb and the little 
finger of each of its four dainty hands— for I would not 
call them feet. 
Now the difference between a “claw” and a “nail” is 
a very radical difference. A “ claw ” is a horny point 
to a toe, like the iron with which a walking-stick is shod. 
It is good for poking and scratching. When good Dr. 
Watts wrote, 
“ Those little hands were never made 
To tear each other’s eyes,” 
he meant to teach children that they ought not to revert 
to an instinct which belongs to the time when we wore 
long, crooked talons. But perhaps he was not a Darwinite. 
Anyway, he had looked lovingly into the mystery of those 
little hands, with their expanded and sensitive finger tips, 
shielded only with soft transparent nails. Those nails 
are tokens of fingers, not toes, and a finger is not a 
weapon, but an instrument endowed with manifold fitness 
for cunning work. It is a perceiving organ also, working 
with the eye and ear to bring us intelligence of the world 
in which we live. True, we have nails and not claws upon 
what we call our toes, but remember that we are altogether 
H 
