I have mentioned three parts of the body as remarkable for the acuteness of the sense of touch, namely, the TONGUE, the LIPS, and the HANDS. Now in each of these the skin is richly supplied with nerves and blood-vessels; and it is also thick and lies upon a soft cushiony substance, so as to be yielding and to admit of being applied accurately over any surface with which it is placed in contact, and of again resuming its shape when the pressure is removed. For instance, the tongue is so soft and yielding that, when it is applied to a tooth, it dips down between the inequalities and coves accurate information of the condition of the whole surface. The same is the case with the edges of the lips, though not in so marked a degree as in the tongue; and each of these parts is indebted for its great sensitiveness very much to the delicate soft supple nature of its structure. The palmar surface of the hand too, though, like the skin of the sole, it is strong and tough, so as to offer considerable resistance to injury and to prove no dainty morsel even to dogs, as we surmise from the narrative of the death of Jezebel, is yet very soft and yielding. It is also underlaid by a stratum of fat interwoven with strong fibres of tissue, just in the same manner as the skin of the sole of the foot (fig. 46, p. 99). An accumulation of this fat and fibrous tissue under the skin forms the “Pulps” at the ends of the fingers. The slightly conical form and exquisite softness of the Pulps adapts them well for the examination of the surfaces of bodies; and the sense of touch is more acute in them than in other parts of the hand. [Illustration: Fig. 84. Bones of Finger.] In connection with them it is interesting to observe that the last bone of each finger and of the thumb swells out, at the end, into a nodulated lump, which serves the purpose both of supporting the pulp and of giving breadth to the nail. It also, like the corresponding part of the toe (page 99), affords a basis of attachment for the fibres that run, from the bone, through the pad of fat, to the skin, and give firmness and consistence to the part. The bulbous enlargement at the ends of the phalanges of the fingers and toes is peculiar, or almost peculiar, to man. In most Animals these bones taper to a point; in many they are also curved. Hence the nails are, in them, comparatively unsupported, and they become bent in at the sides and curved in their length, that is to say, they are formed into claws. This is the case, to a considerable extent, in the Monkey. The terminal phalanges of the monkey’s digits are more tapering than in man; the nails are more claw-like; and the pulps are less well-formed. This constitutes a not unimportant feature of difference between the hand of that animal and the human hand, in addition to those I have already mentioned.