i88 



THE HUMAN SPECIES 



the trouble to pull upwards and backwards the edge of the 

 ear where the tubercle occurs, the shape of the brute ear is 

 pretty accurately imitated, bearing out the suggestion of that 

 unerring observer, Darwin. 



The inability to move the ear is not characteristic of man, 

 for there are many people who are able to move it, while 

 chimpanzees and orang-outangs as frequently lack it as do the 

 majority of men. 



A study of human phylogeny shows 

 that the position of the pinna on the skull 

 is a peculiarity which man has gradually 

 acquired, for it is most probable that primi- 

 tive man had an ear which projected away 

 from the head and was freely movable. 



Formerly, it was commonly stated that 

 man was alone in possessing a lobule to the 

 ear, but Darwin recognised, after Mivart 

 had pointed it out, that the gorilla, whose 

 ear most nearly approaches the human form, 

 also possessed a lobule, and Ranke has 

 demonstrated that it is not merely rudimentary but very often 

 hangs quite free as in man. 



There is, however, one detail in which the ear of all anthro- 

 poids differs from that of man, in that it is always placed 

 considerably higher on the side of the head. 



Ranke ascribes this position to the uniform curvature of 

 the top of the cranium, so that the upper border of the zygo- 

 matic arch which in man is nearly parallel with the horizontal 

 line of the head in the anthropoids shows a marked inclination 

 downwards and forwards. 



FIG. 99. Human ear. 

 o, Darwin's tubercle. 



