Would it not be much more convenient, for instance, if men were made like octopuses or squids or elephants* trunks? One view of the question, which was put to me by Professor Simkiss, is that animals never really meant to have skeletons at all; what may have happened was that the earliest bones were simply safe dumping-grounds for unwanted metal atoms in the body. Once animals had produced solid mineral lumps inside their bodies, then they might as well make use of them as attachments for muscles.
