56 EVOLUTION AND DISEASE. 
distort this into a tail. The tumour was removed in 
Central Africa and sent to Professor Virchow.t The 
pendulous mass consists of a hollow central cavity sur- 
rounded by fat and covered externally by skin, and in 
Virchow’s opinion it arose as a diverticulum from the 
membranes of the spinal cord (spzna bifida). 
The most interesting false tails are those formed of 
tufts of hair. It was mentioned in the last chapter that 
certain malformations of the spinal column are associ- 
ated with hair-fields and long tufts of hair in the loin. 
Sometimes, as in the example on page 23, the hairs are 
several inches long, recalling the goat-like tuft of hair 
or tail which sculptors represent in the loins of satyrs 
(fauns and egipans). In fauns the tail strongly re- 
sembles the tuft of hair seen in some human beings. 
For instance, compare the back of the faun in fig. 27 
and that of the child, fig. 12. 
Virchow, in writing on this subject, points out the 
possibility that sculptors and artists in representing 
these mythical satyrs and “gods of the wood” with 
tufts of hair for tails, did not trust entirely to the 
imagination, but that such oddities had a certain 
amount of foundation in fact. There is much to sup- 
port this view. Those sylvan deities, the egipans, had 
a man’s head and body, pointed ears, and the hind- 
quarters of a goat. In some forms of local hairiness 
due to spinal defect, the hair extends over the legs and 
buttocks as in the egipans. The cloven hoof admits 
of a two-fold explanation. In the first place, malposi-_ 
tion of the foot is a frequent complication of congenital 
* Virchow’s Arch. Bd., ci. S. 571. 
