The Descent of Man

and, as I have myself seen, are quite unable to
throw a stone with precision.
It seems to me far from true that because "objects
are grasped clumsily" by monkeys, "a
much less specialised organ of prehension"
would have served them (70. 'Quarterly Review,'
April 1869, p. 392.) equally well with
their present hands. On the contrary, I see no
reason to doubt that more perfectly constructed
hands would have been an advantage to them,
provided that they were not thus rendered less
fitted for climbing trees. We may suspect that a
hand as perfect as that of man would have been
disadvantageous for climbing; for the most
arboreal monkeys in the world, namely, Ateles
in America, Colobus in Africa, and Hylobates
in Asia, are either thumbless, or their toes partially
cohere, so that their limbs are converted
into mere grasping hooks. (71. In Hylobates
syndactylus, as the name expresses, two of the
toes regularly cohere; and this, as Mr. Blyth