20 THE DESCENT OF MAN. [Part I. 



power, as well as of its unusual development. He knows 

 a family in which one member, the present head of a 

 family, could, when a youth, pitch several heavy books 

 from his head by the movement of the scalp alone ; and 

 he won wagers by performing this feat. His father, uncle, 

 grandfather, and all his three children, possess the same 

 power to the same unusual degree. This family became 

 divided eight generations ago into two branches; so 

 that the head of the above-mentioned branch is cousin in 

 the seventh degree to the head of the other branch. This 

 distant cousin resides in another part of France, and, or 

 being asked whether he possessed the same faculty, im 

 mediately exhibited his power. This case offers a good il 

 lustration how persistently an absolutely useless faculty 

 may be transmitted. 



The extrinsic muscles which serve to move the whole 

 external ear, and the intrinsic muscles which move the 

 different parts, all of which belong to the system of the 

 panniculus, are in a rudimentary condition in man ; they 

 are also variable in development, or at least in function. 

 I have seen one man who could draw his ears forward, 

 and another who could draw them backward ; 23 and, from 

 what one of these persons told me, it is probable that most 

 of us, by often touching our ears and thus directing our 

 attention toward them, could by repeated trials recover 

 some power of movement. The faculty of erecting the 

 ears and of directing them to different points of the com- 

 pass, is no doubt of the highest service to many animals, 

 as they thus perceive the point of danger ; but I have never 

 heard of a man who possessed the least power of erecting 

 his ears — the one movement which might be of use to him. 

 The whole external shell of the ear may be considered a 

 rudiment, together with the various folds and prominences 



23 Canestrini quotes Hyrt. ('Armuario della Soc. dei Naturalist!, 1 

 Modena, 1867, p. 97) to the same effect. 



