When one comes to think of it, it is most extraordinary what powers are contained in the limbless body of a snake. The ancestors of snakes had limbs, as can be proved by dissection, for in some, even now, the minute bones of rudimentary hind legs lie embedded in the flesh. They are, of course, perfectly useless, and their presence can only be explained on evolutionary doctrines. Snakes, then, have lost their limbs, and the theory is that they have lost them because they gradually came to require them less and less, not because their body got to be better adapted for the uses to which limbs are put. And yet to a very large extent this has actually come to be the case. For instance, one thing that the two forelegs, or arms, seem specially fitted for, is to clasp or hug, as we see not only with ourselves, but, to an even greater extent, with the ant-eater of South America, or—according to popular belief, at any rate—with the bears. A snake, however, with its long rope-like body, can hug with infinitely greater power and effect than can the strongest pair of arms belonging to an animal of the same size—or, rather, weight. But not only arms, but even hands, may be eclipsed, for the whipster of America, by coiling two different parts of its body round the body of another snake, and then suddenly straightening out the portion between them, which has hitherto been looped, can tear the individual so attacked into halves. It is doubtful, however, whether a monkey of comparable size could do the same with hands and arms together. In both monkeys and men, again, one of the most useful offices of the hand—perhaps we may call it the chief office—is to convey food to the mouth, but this a snake can do with a coil of its own body, if not as well as ourselves, at least a good deal better than can many animals, whose hands are only paws.