20 



Support from corroborative phenomena was needed, but none 

 was forthcoming. Indeed, had this identification stood alone, it 

 would hardly have commanded acceptance ; but making its appear- 

 ance in good company amidst a phalanx of marshalled facts, 

 which there was no gainsaying, it obtained an amount of credence 

 which was scarcely deserved. 



In Germany, Ludwig 'SLejev and, more recently, C. Langer, 

 have thrown doubt upon Darwin's interpretation of the cusp in 

 question. But although this cusp is sometimes triple, frequently 

 double, and still more frequently absent altogether — variations 

 which, to say the least, do not uphold Darwin's view — the current 

 of intellectual opinion has borne the Theory of Natural Selection 

 into favour and this item has travelled with the rest. 



Although for nearly a generation no fresh light has been 

 thrown upon this particular question, yet for years past the cusp 

 has been labelled " Darwin's Point " upon diagrams and museum 

 preparations ; the correctness of his identification has been 

 generally assumed and the matter treated as settled. 



This, however, was nofc Darwin's opinion. 



In July, 1879, my attention was drawn to the ears of a new- 

 born child. He was of a dark complexion and hirsute ; the edges 

 of his little ears were fringed with black hairs showing con- 

 spicuously upon the delicate skin of infancy. 



The direction, or set, of these hairs surprised me. Instead 

 of radiating from the margin of the ear like the cogs of a wheel, 

 or overlapping one another around its edge like the teeth of a 

 ratchet, two streams of hairs approached each other from almost 

 opposite directions until their points crossed and interlaced (see 



The part of the helix at which the points of the hairs met 

 was that part of the infolded outer rim which is normally some- 

 what thickened, and where a little white nodule is frequently 

 present, the nodule which in later life commonly develops into 

 Darwin's Point. I communicated my discovery to Mr. Darwin, 

 and received from him several letters on the subject. 



Encouraged by Mr. Darwin, I have for the past 16 years 

 observed the ears of infants and induced others to do so. 



I proceed now to describe some observations which prove that 

 the hairs upon an infant's ear are arranged upon a definite plan 

 and have different directions in different parts of the organ. 



To begin with, the back of the ear at birth is frequently 

 clothed with a regular growth of hair. The possible significance 

 of this will be dealt with later. For the moment, however, I 

 merely draw attention to the peculiarities of the growth, its 



