46 HOMO V. DAimm. 



remind your Lordship of the gentleman Mr. Darwin told us 

 of, who "could pitch several heavy books from his head by the 

 movement of the scalp alone." No horse has got muscles 

 connected with the panniculus which could enable him to per- 

 form this feat ; nor has any other animal that I ever heard 

 of. Perhaps, however, Mr. Darwin may think that some 

 animal, now extinct, possessed this extraordinary power. 



Lord C. "We had better confine our attention to what Mr. 

 Darwin says. We need not take what he may think into 

 account. Will he now go on ? 



Darwin. My Lord, " the extrinsic muscles which serve to 

 move the whole external ear, and the intrinsic muscles 

 ■which move the different parts, all of which belong to the 

 system of the panniculus, are in a rudimentary condition in 

 man ; they are also variable in development, or at least in 

 function. I have seen one man who could draw his ears 

 forwards, and another who could draw them backwards, and 

 from what one of these persons told me it is probable that 

 most of us, by often touching our ears, and thus directing 

 attention to them, could, by repeated trials, recover some 

 power of movement. The faculty of erecting the ears, and 

 of directing them to different points of the compass, is, no 

 doubt, of the highest service to many animals, as they thus 

 perceive the point of danger ; but I have never heard of a 

 man who possessed the least power of erecting his ears — 

 the one movement which might be of use to him. . . . The 

 ears of the chimpanzee and orang are curiously like those 

 of man, and I am assured by the keepers in the Zoological 

 Gardens that these animals never move or erect them ; so 

 that they are in an equally rudimentary condition, as far as 

 function is concerned, as in man. Why these animals, as 

 well as the progenitors of man, should have lost the power 

 of erecting their ears, we cannot say. It may be, though I 



