VESTIGIAL STRUCTURES. 87 



It has been doubted whether these pendulous bodies 

 are of the nature of auricles, and it is desirable that 

 the evidence should be put before the reader which 

 favours such an interpretation. An auricle, or pinna, 

 may be defined as an enlarged operculum in a mam- 

 mal, consisting of a framework of yellow elastic 

 cartilage covered with skin, simi- 

 lar to that on the rest of the 

 body, and containing striped 

 muscle-fibre. 



The cervical auricle, such as 

 is seen in the neck of the girl 

 on page 83, agrees with this 

 definition in every particular ; 

 it contains yellow elastic carti- 

 lage, is skin-covered, and has 

 muscle-fibre attached to it, as 

 may be seen on reference to the 

 magnified sketch of a section of 

 a small cervical auricle removed 

 from a child's neck, immediately 

 above the inner end of the 

 clavicle. In order to complete FlG - 4S.-Vertical section of the 



cervical auricle of a Goat. C, 



the definition, we require to show cartilage ; M, muscle-fibre. 

 that they are enlarged or persis- (Nat> size-) 

 tent opercula. The specimen, from which the drawing, 

 fig. 44, was prepared was associated with a persistent 

 branchial cleft, and in the cases where clefts are not 

 persistent, the auricles are situated at spots exactly 

 corresponding to the point where such fistulas open ; and, 

 as has already been mentioned, one member of a family 



