Among the mammals the embryos of the marsupials have three pairs of somites (Figure 1.131) after sixty hours, and eight pairs after seventy-two hours (Figure 1.135). They develop more slowly in the embryo of the rabbit; this has three somites on the eighth day (Figure 1.132), and eight somites a day later (Figure 1.134). In the incubated hen's egg the first somites make their appearance thirty hours after incubation begins (Figure 1.153). At the end of the second day the number has risen to sixteen or eighteen (Figure 1.155). The articulation of the stem-zone, to which the somites owe their origin, thus proceeds briskly from front to rear, new transverse constrictions of the "protovertebral plates" forming continuously and successively. The first segment, which is almost half-way down in the embryonic shield of the amniote, is the foremost of all; from this first somite is formed the first cervical vertebra with its muscles and skeletal parts. It follows from this, firstly, that the multiplication of the primitive segments proceeds backwards from the front, with a constant lengthening of the hinder end of the body; and, secondly, that at the beginning of segmentation nearly the whole of the anterior half of the sole-shaped embryonic shield of the amniote belongs to the later head, while the whole of the rest of the body is formed from its hinder half. We are reminded that in the amphioxus (and in our hypothetic primitive vertebrate, Figures 1.98 to 1.102) nearly the whole of the fore half corresponds to the head, and the hind half to the trunk. The number of the metamera, and of the embryonic somites or primitive segments from which they develop, varies considerably in the vertebrates, according as the hind part of the body is short or is lengthened by a tail. In the developed man the trunk (including the rudimentary tail) consists of thirty-three metamera, the solid centre of which is formed by that number of vertebrae in the vertebral column (seven cervical, twelve dorsal, five lumbar, five sacral, and four caudal). To these we must add at least nine head-vertebrae, which originally (in all the craniota) constitute the skull. Thus the total number of the primitive segments of the human body is raised to at least forty-two; it would reach forty-five to forty-eight if (according to recent investigations) the number of the original segments of the skull is put at twelve to fifteen. In the tailless or anthropoid apes the number of metamera is much the same as in man, only differing by one or two; but it is much larger in the long-tailed apes and most of the other mammals. In long serpents and fishes it reaches several hundred (sometimes 400).