24 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



than four out of his seven children. When present, the 

 great nerve invariably passes through it ; and this clearly 

 indicates that it is the homologue and rudiment of the 

 supra-condyloid foramen of the lower animals. Prof. 

 Turner estimates, as he informs me, that it occurs in about 

 one per cent, of recent skeletons. But if the occasional 

 development of this structure in man is, as seems probable, 

 due to reversion, it is a return to a very ancient state of 

 things, because in the higher Quadrumana it is absent. 



There is another foramen or perforation in the humerus, 

 occasionally present in man, which may be called the inter- 

 condyloid. This occurs, but not constantly, in various an- 

 thropoid and other apes,* and likewise in many of the lower 

 animals. It is remarkable that this perforation seems to 

 have been present in man much more frequently during 

 ancient times than recently. Mr. Buskf has collected the 

 following evidence on this head: Prof. Broca '''^noticed the 

 perforation in four and a half per cent, of the arm-bones 

 collected in the ' Cimetiere du Sud/ at Paris; and in the 

 Grotto of Orrony, the contents of which are referred to the 

 Bronze period, as many as eight humeri out of thirty-two 

 were perforated ; but this extraordinary proportion, he 

 thinks, might be due to the cavern having been a sort of 

 ^family vault. ^ Again, M. Dupont found thirty per cent, 

 of perforated bones in the caves of the Valley of the Lesse, 

 belonging to the Reindeer period; while M. Leguay, in a 

 sort of dobnen at Argenteuil, observed twenty-five per cent, 

 to be perforated; and M. Pruner-Bey found twenty-six per 

 cent, in the same condition in bones from Vaureal. Nor 

 should it be left unnoticed that M. Pruner-Bey states that 

 this condition is common in Guanche skeletons.^' It is an 

 interesting fact that ancient races, in this and several other 

 cases, more frequently present structures which resemble 

 those of the lower animals than do the modern. One chief 

 cause seems to be that the ancient races stand somewhat 



*Mr. St. George Mivart, ''Transact. Phil. Soc," 1867, p. 310. 



f " On the Caves of Gibraltar," "Transact. Internat. Congress of 

 Prehist. Arcli." Third Session, 1869, p. 159. Prof Wyman has lately 

 shown (Fourth Annual Report, Peabody Museum, 1871, p. 20), that 

 this perforation is present in thirty-one per cent, of some human re- 

 mains from ancient mounds in the Western United States, and in 

 Florida. It frequently occurs in the negro. 



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