After the trunk has been added, the mode of insertion varies still more. In a not inconsiderable number of cases the arms spring from the bottom of the head-circle, and sometimes even from the median region, as before the trunk appeared (_cf._ above, p. 346, Fig. 14 (_b_)). In the last case the most grotesque arrangements occur, as if the arms might sprout at any point of the surface.[253] In the majority of cases, however, and certainly among the better drawings, the arms spring from the side of the trunk towards the median level (_cf._ above, p. 341, Fig. 6 (_a_)). ----- Footnote 253: The tendency which appears in more than one child’s drawings to put the right arm below the left is worth noting, though I am not prepared to offer an explanation of the phenomenon. ----- The length of the arm is frequently exaggerated. This adds to the self-expansive and self-proclamatory look of the mannikin, as may be seen in the accompanying drawings by boys of five and of six respectively (Fig. 20 (_a_) and (_b_)). [Illustration: Fig. 20 (_a_).] [Illustration: Fig. 20 (_b_).] This arrangement of the arms stretched straight out, or less commonly pointing obliquely upwards or downwards, continues until the child grows bold enough to represent actions. When this stage is reached their form and length may be materially modified, as also their position.[254] ----- Footnote 254: On the treatment of the arm, see Perez, _op. cit._, p. 190: _cf._ Ricci, _op. cit._, pp. 6-8. I have met with no case of the arms being attached to the legs such as Stanley Hall speaks of, _Contents of Children’s Minds_, p. 267. ----- The arm in these childish drawings early develops the interesting adjunct of a hand. Like other features this is apt at first to be amusingly forced into prominence by its size, and not infrequently by heaviness of stroke as well. [Illustration: Fig. 21 (_a_).—Humpty Dumpty on the wall.] [Illustration: Fig. 21 (_b_).] The treatment of the hand illustrates the process of artistic evolution, the movement from a bold symbolism in the direction of a more life-like mode of representation. Thus one of the earliest and rudest devices I have met with, though in a few cases only, is that of drawing strokes across the line of the arm by way of digital symbols. Here we have merely a clumsy attempt to convey the abstract idea of branching or bifurcation. These cross-strokes are commonly continued upwards so that the whole visible part of the arm becomes tree-like. It is an important step from this to the drawing of twig-like lines which bifurcate with the line of the arm (Fig. 21 (_a_) and (_b_)). It is a still more significant advance in the process of evolution when the digital bifurcations are placed rightly, being concentrated in a bunch-like arrangement at the extremity of the arm-line. Here, again, various modes of treatment disclose themselves, marking stages in the development of the artist.