Fig. 62A.
Hedgehog—right hand.
Fig. 63.
Common squirrel—left foot.
It may be bluntly asserted that the ridges are arranged as we find them because, hands and feet being used as they are, the ridges “can do no other,” and that there’s an end of it, and that we cannot derive any help as to the origin of specific difference from such a trifle, the next item on the agenda should be called for. As a piece of dialectics that would be effective, but if taken literally it only goes to prove my simple contention.
It will be enough to mention the hand alone of the remaining series with a note as to each animal.
Fig. 64 gives the hand of a chimpanzee with ridges on the pulps resembling those of all the apes, monkeys and lemurs, arched groups on the digits and longitudinal ones on the centre of the palm, both of these last two being exactly what would be found arising from the actions of climbing branches and discriminating globular objects in the palm.