_F.l.p._ Flexor longus pollicis.] Professor Burt G.Wilder, in his paper on extra digits,[188] has {181} recorded no less than twenty-four cases where such excess coexisted in both little fingers; also one case in which the right little finger and little toe were so affected; six in which it was both the little fingers and both the little toes; and twenty-two other cases more or less the same, but in which the details were not accurately to be obtained.
Mr.Darwin cites[189] a remarkable instance of what he is inclined to regard as the development in the foot of birds of a sort of representation of the wing-feathers of the hand.

He says: "In several distinct breeds of the pigeon and fowl the legs and the two outer toes are heavily feathered, so that, in the trumpeter pigeon, they appear like little wings.

In the feather-legged bantam, the 'boots,' or feathers, which grow from the outside of the leg, and generally from the two outer toes, have, according to the excellent authority of Mr.Hewitt, been seen to exceed the wing-feathers in length, and in one case were actually nine and a half inches in length! As Mr.Blyth has remarked to me, these leg-feathers resemble the primary wing-feathers, and are totally unlike the fine down which naturally grows on the legs of some birds, such as grouse and owls.
Hence it may be suspected that excess of food has first given redundancy to the plumage, and then that the law of homologous variation has led to the development of feathers on the legs, in a position corresponding with those on the wing, namely, on the outside of the tarsi and toes.

I am strengthened in this belief by the following curious case of correlation, which for a long time seemed to me utterly inexplicable,--namely, that in pigeons of any breed, if the legs are feathered, the two outer toes are partially connected by skin.

These two outer toes correspond with our third and fourth toes.