amphibians and
reptiles. The former (frogs and toads) take to it only when they come of
age, but lizards, snakes and all other reptiles do it from infancy. But
the nose is not yet. That is something too delicate to come out of a
cold-blooded snout covered with hard scales. Birds, too, by having their
mouth parts encased in a horny bill seem to be debarred from wearing
noses. And yet there is one primeval fowl, most ancient of all the
feathered families, which has come near it. I mean the apteryx, that
eccentric, wingless recluse which hides itself in the scrub jungles of
New Zealand. Its nostrils, unlike those of every other bird, are at the
tip of its beak, which is swollen and sensitive; and Dr. Buller says
that as it wanders about in the night it makes a continual sniffing and
softly taps the walls of its cage with the point of its bill. But the
apteryx is one of those odd geniuses which come into the world too soon,
and perish ineffectual. Its kindred are all extinct, and so will it be
ere long.

[Illustration: A BOLD ATTEMPT TO GROW IN THE CASE OF A TAPIR]

When we come to the beasts we find the right conditions at last for the
growth of the nose. Take the horse for an example of the average beast
without idiosyncrasy. Its profile is nearly a straight line from the
crown to the nostrils, beyond which it slopes downwards to the lips. The
skin of this part is soft and smooth, without hair, and the horse dearly
loves to have it fondled. The sense of touch is evidently uppermost. At
this stage there was what to the eye of fancy looks like a bold attempt
to grow a nose in the case of a tapir, but it miscarried. These hoofed
beasts are all very hard up for something in the way of a hand to bring
their food to their mouths. The camel employs its lips and the cow its
tongue; the muntjae or barking deer of India has attained a tongue of
such length that it uses it for a handkerchief to wipe its eyes. So the
tapir could not resist the temptation to misapply its nose to the
purpose of gathering fodder, and the ultimate result was the elephant,
whose nose is a wonderful hand and a bucket and other things. The pig,
being a swine, debased its nose in a worse way, making a grubbing tool
of it.

There has been another attempt to misuse and pervert this part of the
face which I scarcely dare to touch upon, for it is so utterly fantastic
and mystical that I fear the charge of heresy if I give words to my
thoughts. It occurs amon