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The teats pass into the cavity of a pouch or pocket on the ventral side of the mother, and this is supported by a couple of marsupial bones. The female has three young in the pouch. These Didelphida climb trees like the apes, grasping the branches with their hand-shaped hind feet.

On account of the hand-shaped marks made by its paws, Owen thinks that it was akin to the frogs; but it was a formidable monster, with head and jaws of a crocodile. Another may have been the Teleosaurus, which resembled our alligators. It was thirty-five feet in length. Then there was the Hylaeosaurus, a monster twenty-five feet in length, with a cuirass of bony plates."

Sponges, as may be imagined from the mode of their growth, are most sportive in their forms: some a tubular, others mushroom-like, a few almost globular, and still others branched or hand-shaped; in the warmer seas they hang in fantastic and gorgeous fans from the roofs of submarine caverns, or decorate the sides with vases of classic elegance, though of nature's handiwork.

But when the hunters pointed out the hand-shaped track in the road and said "seek," the hair rose upon the dogs' backs and they stuck their tails between their legs and interpreted "seek," as meaning that they were to seek their own homes by the shortest path. This new rank animal scent had no attraction for them. They had not lost any bear. In other words, they would not follow.

Its large black eyes, of unusual mildness, were widely opened, and its nose slit like hares and rabbits. It was just about to stretch itself, when, to our great regret, l'Encuerado shot it; the poor beast fell over on the ground, and placing its hand-shaped paws on the wound, rolled itself up into a ball at the foot of a tree.

The higher apes have been classified as 'quadrumana, or 'four-handed, because their hind feet are hand-shaped; but this designation is improperly applied, because the ape's posterior extremities are not really hands at all. They merely look like hands at the first glance, whereas, in fact, they are but feet adapted for climbing.

The Anthlyllis vulneraria is "Our Lady's fingers," and the kidney-wort has been designated "lady's navel." Certain orchids, from the peculiar form of their hand-shaped roots, have been popularly termed "Our Lady's hands," a name given in France to the dead-nettle.