The truly left-handed, equally with the larger percentage of those who may be designated truly right-handed, are exceptionally dexterous; and to the former the idea that the instinctive impulse which influences their preference is a mere acquired habit, traceable mainly to some such bias as the mode of carrying in the nurse’s arms in infancy, is utterly untenable. The value of personal experience in determining some of the special points involved in this inquiry is obvious, and will excuse a reference to my own observations, as confirmed by a comparison with those of others equally affected, such as Professor Edward S. Morse, Dr. E. A. Reeve, a former pupil of my own, and my friend, Dr. John Rae, the Arctic explorer. The last remarked in a letter to me, confirming the idea of hereditary transmission: “Your case as to left-handedness seems very like my own. My mother was left-handed, and very neat-handed also. My father had a crooked little finger on the left hand. So have =I=.” Referring to personal experience, I may note as common to myself with other thoroughly left-handed persons, that, with an instinctive preference for the left hand, which equally resisted remonstrance, proffered rewards, and coercion, I nevertheless learned to use the pen in the right hand, apparently with no greater effort than other boys who pass through the preliminary stages of the art of penmanship. In this way the right hand was thoroughly educated, but the preferential instinct remained. The slate-pencil, the chalk, and penknife were still invariably used in the left hand, in spite of much opposition on the part of teachers; and in later years, when a taste for drawing has been cultivated with some degree of success, the pencil and brush are nearly always used in the left hand. At a comparatively early age the awkwardness of using the spoon and knife at table in the left hand was perceived and overcome. Yet even now, when much fatigued, or on occasion of unusual difficulty in carving a joint, the knife is instinctively transferred to the left hand. Alike in every case where unusual force is required, as in driving a large nail, wielding a heavy tool, or striking a blow with the fist, as well as in any operation demanding special delicacy, the left hand is employed. Thus, for example, though the pen is invariably used in the right hand in penmanship, the crow-quill and etching needle are no less uniformly employed in the left hand. Hence, accordingly, on proceeding to apply the test of the hand to the demotic writing of the Egyptians, by copying rapidly the Turin enchorial papyrus already referred to, first with the right hand and then with the left, while some of the characters were more accurately rendered as to slope, thickening of lines, and curve, with the one hand, and some with the other, I found it difficult to decide on the whole which hand executed the transcription with greater ease. In proof of the general facility