and supposing him to crave possession of a body through which he might get into touch with this material world and express himself in outward forms and motions; then oh! how fitly were this bat explained.

But let us go back to firm ground.  If you compare a dog’s profile with that of a horse you will note at once that the nostrils are in advance of the lips, and have a kind of portal to themselves.  This is a distinct advance.  The sense of smell has come to the front and pushed aside the lower sense of touch.  You will observe, too, that with the growth of the brain the brain-pan has elevated itself above the level of the nose.  Through the cat to the monkeys the process proceeds, the forehead advancing, the jaws retreating, and the nostrils leaving the lips, until they finally settle in a detached villa midway between the eyes and the mouth.  This is the nose.  I do not know the use of it.  I cannot fathom the meaning of it.  It is a solemn mystery.  See the face of an orang-outang.  It is a countenance, a signboard with three distinct lines of writing on it, the eyes, the nose and the mouth.  You may not think much of this particular nose.  Neither do I. I think it is situated rather too near the eyes and too far from the mouth.  It is a little too small also, and wants style.  But you must not judge a first attempt too critically.  I have seen human noses of a pattern not unlike this, but they are not considered aristocratic:  perhaps they indicate a reversion to the ancestral type.

[Illustration:  I HAVE SEEN HUMAN NOSES OF A PATTERN NOT UNLIKE THIS, BUT THEY ARE NOT CONSIDERED ARISTOCRATIC.]

But the noses even of monkeys are not all like this.  In fact, there is a good deal of variety, and two in particular have struck me as quite remarkable.  One is that of the long-nosed monkey (Semnopithecus nasalis).  I think it must have suggested Sterne’s stranger on a mule, who had travelled to the promontory of noses and threw all Strassburg into a ferment.  I have often contemplated this nose in mute wonderment, and longed to see that monkey in life, if so be I might arrive at some understanding of it; for the taxidermist cannot rise above his own level, and the man who would mount S. nasalis would need to be a Henry Irving.  Then there is the sub-nosed monkey, labelled rhinopithecus, of which there is an expressive specimen at the South Kensington Museum.  Who can consider that nose seriously and continue to believe in a recipe made up of struggle for existence, adaptation to environment, and natural selection quantum suf.?  If I could dine with that monkey, ask it to drink a glass of wine with me, offer it a pinch of snuff and so on, I might come in time to feel, if not to comprehend, the import of its nose.

[Illustration:  THE LONG-NOSED MONKEY.]

[Illustration:  WHO CAN CONSIDER THAT NOSE SERIOUSLY?]