Note 931 — BOOK VII.835 MAN, HIS BIRTH, HIS ORGANIZATION, AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTS.

Cuvier remarks that this story must have been originally told with reference to the race of large apes. He says, however, that some men have the “os coccygis” greatly prolonged, and mentions a painter of celebrity in Paris who had this malformation. “But from this to an actual tail,” says he, “the distance is very great.” In these times we have the (perhaps doubtful) account by M. de Couret, of the Niam Niams, a race in Abyssinia or Nubia, with tails at least two inches in length. Few will fail to recollect Lord Monboddo’s theory, that mankind originally had tails, but wore them off in lapse of time by climbing up the trees.