1897.] or HAIR TIPOK THE HUMAN EAH. 309 



The divergence is easily explained, but the subsequent conver- 

 gence requires consideration. The convergence of the hairs, as the 

 curl in the helix is reached, suggests (as other phenomena have 

 already suggested) that this infolded rim is an atrophied feature, 

 the most degenerate part of a degenerate organ. It would seem 

 that this fold is all that survives of a subdiscoidal or funnel-shaped 

 organ of considerable size and projection. 



As in the course of ages this extension contracted and became 

 folded back upon itself into the helix which we now know, the once 

 divergent lines of gro\^th upon its back would be crowded together 

 as the lines of longitude upon a globe draw together after passing 

 the equator. Or, taking the wrist to represent the concha and the 

 extended thumb and fingers the lines of growth of the hairs upon 

 the ancestral ear, partial closure of the hand bringing the live 

 finger-tips into proximity will roughly illustrate the supposed 

 phenomena of distortion. 



That the distortion is greatest below Darwin's Point suggests 

 that the ear has sustained its greatest loss of surface on that side ; 

 and this interpretation is in some sort supported by the fact that 

 all, or most, Monkeys which have pointed ears show the point 

 higher than we show our rudiment. 



The great size of the ancestral ear may be inferred from the still 

 considerable dimensions of its atrophied successor ; and if the above 

 explanation of the countermarching hairs is correct, the amount 

 of their convergence argues a very considerable extent of ear at one 

 time protruding beyond the present limits of the helix. 



It has, I believe, been generally suspected that the line of human 

 descent rims somewhat wide of any living anthropoid, and in this 

 view the phenomena of the ear agi'ee. 



vi. Summary. 



The human external ear is more ancestral than that of any 

 known Ape ; more bestial than the almost naked ears of the Anthro- 

 poids, which show little or no trace of any point ; more bestial even 

 than the bare bluntly-angled ear of the Dog-faced Baboon. There 

 are characters apparently peculiar to itself which need reference to 

 such early forms as N>/cticebns and Cheiromys before their signifi- 

 cance can be appreciated. 



A large and somewhat funnel-shaped ear, sharply pointed and 

 projecting widely from the head, and with sufficient powers of 

 motion to permit of its being pricked, shaken, and laid at will, seems 

 within the vista of possibilities opened up by the phenomena just 

 described. 



We may perhaps go one step further and reasonably infer the 

 back of this ear to have been thickly clothed with hair, longer upon 

 the concha, shorter upon the anti-helix and helix, and that it was 

 fringed with stronger and darker hairs which united at the point 

 in a conspicuous spirally-twisted tuft. 



