EVOLUTION OF MAN 165 



hands, the soles of the feet, and the backs of the terminal 

 joints of the fingers and toes ; and these same portions are 

 naked in the apes. Not only does hair clothe the whole 

 human body, the slant of the hair in the several regions of 

 the body is the same that we observe in the apes (Plate 93). 

 Therefore, even to minute details, the apes and man can be 

 compared as to the presence and slope of hair; the only 

 considerable difference in the condition of the hair in the 

 two being in the length and the coarseness of the indi- 

 vidual hairs. 



Observe another minute characteristic, one often seen 

 in human ears (Plate 94). In many monkeys the ears are 

 pointed and do not show any recurved edge such as is seen 

 in the ears of apes and men (ear of Barbary ape, Plate 94). 

 On the recurved edge of the human ear and that of apes 

 there is often a portion slightly more developed than the 

 rest, showing as a wider place (Plate 94), or even a point 

 (Plate 95, A and B] on the reflected edge. This corre- 

 sponds to the point seen in the ears of the lower monkeys, 

 only in their ears the point is erect, the edge of the ear not 

 being folded over. 



The apes and man have the tail greatly reduced, it 

 being represented merely by the coccyx, a reminiscence of 

 the ancestral condition when functional tails were present. 

 It is interesting to know that there have been instances in 

 which a human being has retained in an abnormally highly 

 developed condition the muscles which represent the func- 

 tional muscles of this ancestral tail (Plate 95, C). In a 

 similar manner, while our ears are slightly, if at all, movable, 

 we retain in a vestigial condition the muscles which in some 

 ancestor must have served to move the ears (Plate 96, A}. 



