When the human embryo has reached When the human embryo has reached this stage of development, it can still scarcely be distinguished from that of any other higher vertebrate. All the chief parts of the body are now laid down: the head with the primitive skull, the rudiments of the three higher sense-organs and the five cerebral vesicles, and the gill-arches and clefts; the trunk with the spinal cord, the rudiment of the vertebral column, the chain of metamera, the heart and chief blood-vessels, and the kidneys. At this stage man is a higher vertebrate, but shows no essential morphological difference from the embryos of the mammals, the birds, the reptiles, etc. This is an ontogenetic fact of the utmost significance. From it we can gather the most important phylogenetic conclusions.
Fig.174. Development of the lizard’s legs. Fig. 174—Development of the lizard’s legs (_Lacerta agilis_), with special relation to their blood-vessels. _1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11_ right fore-leg; _13, 15_ left fore-leg; _2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12_ right hind-leg; _ 14, 16_ left hind-leg; _SRV_ lateral veins of the trunk, _VU_ umbilical vein. (From _F. Hochstetter._)
There is still no trace of the limbs. Although head and trunk are separated and all the principal internal organs are laid down, there is no indication whatever of the “extremities” at this stage; they are formed later on. Here again we have a fact of the utmost interest. It proves that the older vertebrates had no feet, as we find to be the case in the lowest living vertebrates (amphioxus and the cyclostoma). The descendants of these ancient footless vertebrates only acquired extremities—two fore-legs and two hind-legs—at a much later stage of development. These were at first all alike, though they afterwards vary considerably in structure—becoming fins (of breast and belly) in the fishes, wings and legs in the birds, fore and hind legs in the creeping animals, arms and legs in the apes and man. All these parts develop from the same simple original structure, which forms secondarily from the trunk-wall (Figs. 172, 173). They have always the appearance of two pairs of small buds, which represent at first simple roundish knobs or plates. Gradually each of these plates becomes a large projection, in which we can distinguish a small inner part and a broader outer part. The latter is the rudiment of the foot or hand, the former that of the leg or arm. The similarity of the original rudiment of the limbs in different groups of vertebrates is very striking.