in other snakes there are rudiments of the pelvis and hind
limbs. Some of the cases of rudimentary organs are extremely curious;
for instance, the presence of teeth in foetal whales, which when grown
up have not a tooth in their heads; and the presence of teeth, which
never cut through the gums, in the upper jaws of our unborn calves. It
has even been stated on good authority that rudiments of teeth can be
detected in the beaks of certain embryonic birds. Nothing can be plainer
than that wings are formed for flight, yet in how many insects do we see
wings so reduced in size as to be utterly incapable of flight, and not
rarely lying under wing-cases, firmly soldered together!

The meaning of rudimentary organs is often quite unmistakeable: for
instance there are beetles of the same genus (and even of the same
species) resembling each other most closely in all respects, one
of which will have full-sized wings, and another mere rudiments of
membrane; and here it is impossible to doubt, that the rudiments
represent wings. Rudimentary organs sometimes retain their potentiality,
and are merely not developed: this seems to be the case with the mammae
of male mammals, for many instances are on record of these organs having
become well developed in full-grown males, and having secreted milk. So
again there are normally four developed and two rudimentary teats in
the udders of the genus Bos, but in our domestic cows the two sometimes
become developed and give milk. In individual plants of the same
species the petals sometimes occur as mere rudiments, and sometimes in
a well-developed state. In plants with separated sexes, the male flowers
often have a rudiment of a pistil; and Kolreuter found that by crossing
such male plants with an hermaphrodite species, the rudiment of the
pistil in the hybrid offspring was much increased in size; and this
shows that the rudiment and the perfect pistil are essentially alike in
nature.

An organ serving for two purposes, may become rudimentary or utterly
aborted for one, even the more important purpose; and remain perfectly
efficient for the other. Thus in plants, the office of the pistil is to
allow the pollen-tubes to reach the ovules protected in the ovarium at
its base. The pistil consists of a stigma supported on the style; but in
some Compositae, the male florets, which of course cannot be fecundated,
have a pistil, which is in a rudimentary state, for it is not crowned
with a stigma; bu