RUDIMENTS. 13 



larly present in some of the lower animals can occasionally be 

 detected in man in a greatly reduced condition. Every one must 

 have noticed the power which many animals, especially horses, 

 possess of moving or twitching their skin; and this is effected by 

 the panniculus carnosus. Remnants of this muscle in an efficient 

 state are found in various parts of our bodies; for instance, the 

 muscle on the forehead, by which the eyebrows are raised. The 

 platysma myoides, which is well developed on the neck, belongs 

 to this system. Prof. Turner, of Edinburgh, has occasionally de- 

 tected, as he informs me, muscular fasciculi in five different situ- 

 ations, namely in the axillae, near the scapulae, &c., all of which 

 must be referred to the system of the panniculus. He has also 

 shown™ that the musculous sternalis or sternalis brutorum, which 

 is not an extension of the rectus abdominalis, but is closely allied 

 to the panniculus, occurred in the proportion of about three per 

 cent, in upwards of 600 bodies: he adds, that this muscle affords 

 "an excellent illustration of the statement that occasional and 

 "rudimentary structures are especially liable to variation in ar- 

 "rangement." 



Some few persons have the power of contracting the super- 

 ficial muscles on their scalps; and these muscles are in a variable 

 and partially rudimentary condition. M. A. de Candolle has com- 

 municated to me a curious instance of the long-continued per- 

 sistence or inheritance of this power, as well as of its unusual de- 

 velopment. He knows a family, in which one member, the pres- 

 ent head of the family, could, when a youth, pitch several heavy 

 books from his head by the movement of the scalp alone; and he 

 won wagers by performing this feat. His father, uncle, grand- 

 father, and his three children possess the same power to the 

 same unusual degree. This family became divided eight genera- 

 tions ago into two branches; so that the head of the above-men- 

 tioned branch is cousin in the seventh degree to the head of 

 the other branch. This distant cousin resides in another part 

 of France; and on being asked whether he possessed the same 

 faculty, immediately exhibited his power. This case offers a good 

 illustration how persistent may be the transmission of an abso- 

 lutely useless faculty, probably derived from our remote semi- 

 human progenitors; since many monkeys have, and frequently 

 use the power, or largely moving their scalps up and down." 



The extrinsic muscles which serve to move the external ear, 

 and the intrinsic muscles which move the different parts, are in a 

 rudimentary condition in man, and they all belong to the system 

 of the panniculus; they are also variable in development, or at 



'" Prof. W. Turner, 'Proe. Royal Soc. Edinburgh,' 1866-67, p. 65. 

 =" See my 'Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals,' 1872, 

 p. 144. 



