died."

[Illustration: HAND OF GORILLA, ORANG, GIBBON, AND CHIMPANZEE.]




SOME STRANGE NURSERIES

(FROM NATURE'S WORKSHOP.)

BY GRANT ALLEN.


[Illustration]

You could hardly find a better rough test of relative development in
the animal (or vegetable) world than the number of young produced and
the care bestowed upon them. The fewer the offspring, the higher the
type. Very low animals turn out thousands of eggs with reckless
profusion; but they let them look after themselves, or be devoured by
enemies, as chance will have it. The higher you go in the scale of
being, the smaller the families, but the greater amount of pains
expended upon the rearing and upbringing of the young. Large broods
mean low organization; small broods imply higher types and more care
in the nurture and education of the offspring. Primitive kinds produce
eggs wholesale, on the off chance that some two or three among them
may perhaps survive an infant mortality of ninety-nine per cent, so as
to replace their parents. Advanced kinds produce half a dozen young,
or less, but bring a large proportion of these on an average up to