Tail (anatomy)

“ Sure, it’s possible that prehensile tails could be produced by mutation, but so far as we know it hasn’t happened in human history. As a result, the tail serves as a trade-mark—something that can be easily recognized by anyone. ”

“ The tail is long, short, tufted, or reduced to a mere tubercle, and it may be quite invisible externally. Some have the hair of the head long, and radiating in all directions; others have the face encircled by a kind of mane. ”

“ Animals provided with bushy tails seem to be so as a matter of correlation of growth, their bodies being always provided with thickly-set and more or less soft fur. "I cannot," says Mr. Tait, "find an animal with a bushy tail which cannot, and does not, lie curled up when asleep. ”

“ In the great majority of mammals the hind extremity of the axis of the body is prolonged into a tail. Very generally the tail has distinctly the appearance of an appendage, but in some of the lower mammals, such as the thylacine among marsupials, and the aard-vark or ant-bear among the edentates, it is much thickened at the root, and passes insensibly into the body, after the fashion common among reptiles. ”

“ As it will use none of the good gifts of Nature, one by one she takes them away—eye and brain are the first to go; then the tail begins to grow less and less (you can see the last remnants of a tail in fig. 3) , and finally there is neither head nor tail, power of sight, nor power of motion; all that remains is an irregular-looking leathery lump, which scarcely seems to be alive (fig. 4) . It feeds by drawing water through a hole at its upper end into a great throat pierced by gill-slits (shown in fig. 5, which represents a sea-squirt with the outside wall cut away) ”

“ When catching the ephemeridæ that play above the water, the tail is not expanded: it is reserved for times of courtship. I have seen the female sitting quietly on a branch, and two males displaying their charms in front of her. One would shoot up like a rocket, than suddenly expanding the snow-white tail like an inverted parachute, slowly descend in front of her, turning round gradually to show off both back and front. ”

“ The color has its seat in the armor.
The tail coils up into a ring quite close to the body, when not required for use. The feet and tail have great power of prehension. The animal will clasp a branch with either so firmly that considerable force is necessary to detach it. Giving the tail a turn round a twig they will throw the body forward and grasp another branch a foot or more away, and so move from branch to branch. At night they hang themselves up, sometimes by the tail only, or by the tail and one or more of their claws, and so sleep. ”

“ The tail being frequently separated from the body by the shock (as it may be at any of the vertebrae by the slightest force, without loss of blood or evident pain to the animal, and sometimes, as it would seem, from the effect of fear alone) within a little time, like the mutilated claw of a lobster, begins to renew itself. ”

“ What we call the tail is only the tail covert, and the back view shows the real tail is of stiff feathers, arranged, when these are spread, in an inverted heart shape. Then comes a sudden noise like a loud sneeze, repeated again and again before one can see that it is caused by the sharp striking of the tail feathers against each other and the tail covert—and again he turns and paces. ”

“ It has neither hips, inasmuch as it is a quadruped, nor yet a tail, inasmuch as it is a biped, except nor yet a tal by the way that it has a tail as small as small can be, just a sort of indication of a tail. ”

“ A friend of mine thinks it a pity that we have lost our tails. He argues it would be so helpful if, like the dog, we possessed a tail that wagged when we were pleased, that stuck out straight when we were feeling mad. ”

“ A moment or two afterwards, the waiter coming round to the chair lately occupied by the professor, held up his hands and exclaimed in astonishment: 'Goodness gracious, the memory man has forgotten his umbrella!'
GOSSIP ABOUT TAILS.
Everybody knows that tails serve a great variety of purposes. To mention a few: The horse and ox use their tail to drive off troublesome insects. Some kinds of apes have long prehensile tails with which they swing themselves from branches or reach distant fruit. The kangaroo's tail forms a kind of extra leg, and is also serviceable in jumping. ”

“ Nothing can carry within it affection, or even respect, for an animal whose tail begins nowhere in particular, unless it is at the neck; even if any creature may esteem it an animal at all that is but a tail with a mouth and eyes at one end. Dignify the mouth and eyes into a head, and still you have nothing wherewith to refute those who shall call the snake tribe naught but heads and tails; a vulgar and raffish condition of life, of pot-house and Tommy-Dod suggestion.
AN EARLY WORM. ”

“ But the very young would seem to be even more in need of such precaution, and with them the tail is relatively as large as in the adult, although differently shaped. Finally, even if we conclude that the three distinct stages of the tail are perfectly adapted to certain hypothetically unlike necessities, what shall be said of the intermediate conditions? While growing, the infra-caudal lobe must be rather a hinderance than a help to the movements of the primitive tail; and while disappearing, the filament, being useless, must be, if anything, an incumbrance. ”

“ Could these bones—which, by their being united, form this rudiment of a tail—be disunited and increased in number, stuck out, and covered with skin and muscles, something like the very Monkey-like appendage would be formed. But noble tails are not the gifts of the higher Apes, as they are called, from their many points of resemblance in structure with man, and even in the smaller Monkeys they are extremely variable belongings, being given to one kind and not to another in a manner far beyond our philosophy. ”

“ An inner portion of the tail, brighter than the rest, is more strongly curved, as if by solar repulsion. Stars are seen through the brighter parts of the tail, as they may be seen even through the coma and nucleus, with little diminution of their light. ”

“ The most distinctive character of the animal is, however, to be found in its tail, which is an exceedingly peculiar organ. The tail itself is long and slender, and instead of being thickly clothed with bushy hairs, as in the Bangsrings, it has the basal portion hairy ”

“ This tail was long and formed of extended vertebræ like the tail of a lizard, and from every joint grew a pair of large quill feathers.
Such a tail must have greatly hindered the creature’s flight, and in fact in the many years that passed before the existence of the next birds of which fossil forms remain, a new fashion of tails had come in; the huge court-train had vanished, and birds appeared with the closely crowded vertebræ of the tail, only sufficient to support the tail feathers. ”

“ Oh, that tail—that awful, writhing, lashing tail! I can stand Indians, bears, wolves, anything but that tail, and a rattler is all tail, except its head. If that tail touches me I shall let go. It did touch me, I did not let go. Pride held me there, for I heard the sound of galloping hoofs. Whiskers' empty saddle had alarmed the rest of the party. ”

“ When the tail is at its full length, it is exceeding small, not being larger near the extremity than a horse-hair; there is a little knob at the end, which is furnished with small hairs, to extend on the water, in some measure resembling those at the tail of the musca chamæleon. ”

“ If it lives it is most apt to produce another head like itself, and change into two heads placed neck to neck so that they look in opposite directions. So, too, the severed tail, equally foolish, doubles itself and becomes two useless tails growing end to end.
But is n’t this really quite impossible? A head or a tail or even a half-body cannot get food. If it cannot eat 1t cannot grow: and that is all there is about it. Well, it is true that a fragment cannot eat. But still it can make the
An injury upward near the head developed a new tail, downward a new head. ”

“ As she lies in repose the enormous bushy tail is curled round and laid over the face, so that barely any outline is perceptible. It is curious to see how, even in this condition, the large ears are gently moved at every sound, and when the creature is roused from her torpor the brilliancy with which the eyes gleam from among the heavy fur of the tail is really remarkable. ”

“ The tail is of service as a sculling-oar and a rudder, and its loud slapping of the water when an alarmed animal dives is an effective signal of danger to others. The head is thick and broad, the nose obtuse, the eyes small, the ears short and rounded. ”

“ Skin, bone, and feathers. Ugh! you would only trouble me in my empty stomach, and there study out at leisure the various odds and ends of my organisation. No, no! get up; give my mouth a wide berth; sit on my tail, if you like the fur.”
Concealing my dread of his hungry fangs, I perched lightly on the tail, where I was not unfrequently disturbed by the tremor of his emotions.
Fellow Sparrows, the tail of a beast of prey is the safest perch, and it affords a true index of the play of passion in the brute. ”

“ Sometimes we find that the feathers of the tail are lengthened, it may be only two of them, or the various lengths may be graduated like steps; sometimes the tail has assumed the form of a wedge, or is fan-like, or is shaped like the tail of a swallow, and all this in combination with the most diverse colours and patterns, black and white, ultramarine blue, and so forth. ”

“ One even raised itself high enough to secure a foothold. This animal's tail is also of use in another way. When caught, it will often remain motionless, but if touched, will either run a short distance with great speed, or quickly raising its tail and striking it forcibly against the surface on which it rests, and accompanying this with a quick motion of its hind-limbs, will jump from four to six inches, rising as high as two or three. ”

“ The end of the tail seems always "feeling" the air or surroundings, and has hairs, thin and long, at the end, which aid it in knowing when it is near a leaf or branch. It is almost like the tentacle of some sea zoophyte. ”

“ The tail is furnished throughout with minute decumbent hairs, excepting a small naked space at the tip beneath, of about one line in length; on the upper surface they are brown, and on the under, they are whitish. The fur of the upper and under parts of the body is deep gray at the base; on the lower part of the cheeks, chin, and on the mesial line of the throat and chest, the hairs are uniform—not gray at the base. The ears are brown, and to the naked eye, appear naked. ”

“ On the cross at Ilkley we observe some of these curious animals with their long tails interlacing. Sometimes the tail is wound round the creature’s body, and the idea of the artist was to represent the animal reduced to a state of powerlessness. ”

“ In the early morning of the world, everything was new and wonderful beyond all [51] doubt; but not more new and wonderful than useful and necessary to carry out the future business of creation. Who can deny the high origin of tails? The first animal who was active and well-formed must have had a tail. ”

“ Remarkably for its large head, nude, scaly extremities, and extremely short, nude, scaly tail. "The structure of the ear, limbs and tail has special reference to a burrowing animal—the ear being valvular, so that it may be effectually closed against the entrance of foreign substances, and the feet devoid of hair, but scaly, and the tail reduced to very small dimensions. The eye is also excessively small, and buried deep in the dense silky fur. The hind feet, contrary to what is almost invariably the case in burrowing mammals, are larger than the fore feet."—Anderson. ”

“ Whether going up or down, he carries his tail extended at full length in line with his body, unless it be required for gestures. But while running along horizontal limbs or fallen trunks, it is frequently folded forward over the back, with the airy tip daintily upcurled. In cool weather it keeps him warm. Then, after he has finished his meal, you may see him crouched close on some level limb with his tail-robe neatly spread and reaching forward to his ears, the electric, outstanding hairs quivering in the breeze like pine-needles. ”

“ Nov. 4 and 6, the tail did not appear; Nov. 11, the tail just begun to shew itself, but did not appear above 1⁄2 deg. long through a 10 feet telescope; Nov. 17, the tail was seen by Ponthæus more than 15° long ”

“ The tail resembles a seal’s tail, being thick and short: his fat is like hog’s lard. He lies commonly upon the ice shoals, and can live a good while on shore, till hunger drives him back into the seas; his nourishment being both herbs and fishes: he snores very loud, when he sleeps; and when he is provoked to anger, he roars like a mad bull. ”

“ It is the longest tail we have ever seen in one number. If that tail was cut up into ordinary tails, such as common dogs wear, there would be enough for all the dogs in the Seventh ward, with enough left for a white wire clothes line. When he lays down his tail curls up like a coil of telephone wire, and if you take hold of it and wring you can hear the dog at the central office. If that dog is as long in proportion, when he gets his growth, and his tail grows as much as his body does, the dog will reach from here to the Soldier's home. ”

“ The difference is not even in the fact that we have no tails; for some of the apes also are as tailless as we are. Besides, when you come to think of it, most animals do not have tails—insects do not, nor clams and oysters, nor sea-anemones and star-fish, nor corals and sponges, nor frogs and toads, nor jelly-fish; even the birds, unless you count the feathers as part, do not have tails that one could really wag.
After all, too, we human beings do have tails; or at least a string of tail bones, an inch or more long, tucked away inside our skins. ”