290 DARWINIANISM. 



then, much more men. And whom would men appoint ? 

 Why, him, plainly, who could cry loudest. And the 

 children of this man would naturally possess the gift. 

 The power of cry would become hereditary in a family ; 

 and ever the member of the family that possessed it best 

 would, of the rest, be the selected one, till to the very 

 improvement of the gift, limit there could be none. 

 And, meanwhile, what would happen in situ, in the 

 anatomical machinery itself ? Why, the tremor of the 

 unusual voice would so shake the cellular tissue between 

 the plates of the frontal bone as to cause absorption of 

 it. These plates, consequently, would become more and 

 more hollow would separate more and more. And 

 what could be the consummation at last what but 

 the enormous resonant caverns over the eyes of Stentor 

 himself ! 



Eeally, this seems plausible enough to deserve to escape 

 the reproach of only a story for children of only p,v6ov 

 Tiva jraia-l Bitryetadat. 



But is it so certain, then, that to frontal sinuses any 

 such special power is due ? We cannot all of us have 

 had the privilege of a grandfather on the watch ; and 

 yet, while the story holds only of individuals, and only 

 of an exceptional family or two, we are all of us, or all 

 but all of us, to be credited with the possession of frontal 

 sinuses quite as roomy with the one as with the other. 

 Besides that, the very possession of frontal sinuses may 

 entail no such specialty of gift. It is not a deep voice 

 that carries far, but a high one ; and resonant caverns 

 are much more Likely to go with the bass than the 

 treble! Then there is the elephant: it is said of it 

 that it uses its head as a sort of battering-ram ; and, 

 " in order that the brain may not suffer from the con- 

 cussion, the frontal sinuses are extended to two large 

 cavities ! " What of " resonant chambers " here ? 



