RUDIMENTS. 



17 



viously consists of the extreme margin of the ear folded 

 inward ; and this folding appears to be in some manner 

 connected with the whole external ear being permanently 

 pressed backward. In many monkeys, wiiich do not stand 

 high in the order, as baboons and some species of Macacus,* 

 the upper portion of the ear is slightly pointed, and the 

 margin is not at all folded inward ; but if the margin were 

 to be thus folded, a slight point would necessarily project 

 inward toward the center, and probably a little outward 

 from the plane of the ear ; and this I believe to be their 

 origin in many cases. On the other hand, Prof. L. Meyer, 

 in an able paper recently published,! maintains that the 

 whole case is one of variability ; 

 and that the projections are not real 

 ones, but are due to the internal 

 cartilage on each side of the points 

 not having been fully developed. I 

 am quite ready to admit that this is 

 the correct explanation in many in- 

 stances, as in those figured by Prof. 

 Meyer, in which there are several 

 minute points, or the whole margin 

 is sinuous. I have myself seen, 

 through the kindness of Dr. L. Down, 

 the ear of a microcephalous idiot, 

 on which there is a projection on the 

 outside of the helix, and not on the 

 inward folded edge, so that this point 

 can have no relation to a former apex 

 of the ear. Nevertheless in some 

 cases, my original view, that the points are vestiges of the tips 

 of formerly erect and pointed ears, still seems to me probable. 

 I think so from the frequency of their occurrence, and from the 

 general correspondence in position with that of the tip of a 

 pointed ear. In one case, of which a photograph has been 

 sent me, the projection is so large, that supposing, in ac- 

 cordance with Prof. Meyer's view, the ear to be made per- 



* See also some remarks, and the drawings of the ears of the Lem- 

 uroidea, in Messrs. Murie and Mi vart's excellent paper in "Transact. 

 Zoolog. Soc.," vol. vii, 1869, pp. 6 and 90. 



fUeber das Darwin'sche Spitzohr, "Archiv fiir Path. Anat. und 

 Phys.," 1871, p. 485. 



Fig. 2. Human Ear, mod- 

 eled and drawn by Mr. 

 Woolner. 



a. The projecting point. 



