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"[1] Professor
Semper adds that this example, with many others that might be quoted,
shows that we need not abandon the hope of explaining morphological
characters on Darwinian principles, although their nature is often
difficult to understand.
During a recent discussion of this question in the pages of _Nature_,
Mr. St. George Mivart adduces several examples of what he deems useless
specific characters. Among them are the aborted index finger of the
lemurine Potto, and the thumbless hands of Colobus and Ateles, the
"life-saving action" of either of which he thinks incredible. These
cases suggest two remarks. In the first place, they involve _generic_,
not _specific_, characters; and the three genera adduced are somewhat
isolated, implying considerable antiquity and the extinction of many
allied forms. This is important, because it affords ample time for great
changes of conditions since the structures in question originated; and
without a knowledge of these changes we can never safely assert that any
detail of structure could not have been useful.


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