212 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



ungulate occupies the position of an ancient Chinese Emperor or a 

 Roman Proconsul in Britain in its provision against " barbarians," 

 either Asiatic or Celtic. The resemblance goes further, for no 

 experienced Roman General, whatever the Celestial minds in 

 China may have thought, would fear that the loss of a sector of 

 his wall would imperil the army of occupation in Britain or the 

 fabric of the Roman Empire. But as, in the long run it contributes 

 to one's welfare to be comfortable, and even the domestic ungulate 

 is somewhat ot a hedonist, a well -developed fly -shaker is maintained, 

 the occasional use of which in winter and frequent use in summer 

 and the active purposeful switching of tail, twitching of ears and 

 jerking of head have their limited value. Here there is ample 

 room for diverse opinion and the opponent will ask with some degree 

 of force how we know that there is no more benefit to the cow from 

 its fly-shaker than a mild degree of comfort, and may assert that 

 the possession and use of it may have survival -value by its defence 

 against deadly parasites. We do not know, nor does he, but it 

 would seem that except for the tsetse fly in Africa the plague of 

 flies does little to an ungulate beyond irritating its brain, and if 

 he had no fly -shaker, he would still be able to reach a considerable 

 distance with his tail, ears and head over the irritated regions. 

 The question of survival indeed resolves itself into the vigour and 

 energy of his integrating brain. 



To this view of the function and origin of the panniculus 

 carnosus the busy systematist and student of genetics may refuse 

 to listen, and pass to the order of the day, but I submit that in 

 stating a position it is useful to put forward a crude example in 

 which the issue is plain, and which subsumes an immense number 

 of smaller and more subtle cases, and in a region where the most 

 hardy rebel will not dispute altogether the sway of 'personal selection. 

 It is a question here of the manner in which, speaking in metaphor, 

 the early ungulate first set about making his eolithic or palaeolithic 

 weapons and fashioned them into what we see to-day. " Forged 

 by the incident of use " and habit meets the story of the fly-shaker 

 far better than some mutation arising in far back ages or some 

 dominant variation, or " useful variation within the germ," At 

 any rate Lamarck finds the raw material to hand, and there are 

 supplied adequate noci-cipient stimuli with response, in regions 

 where these are most active under the dominating action of the 

 brain. 



Other Muscles. 



In the skeletal muscles of the primates many muscles offer 

 themselves for consideration as examples of inherited structures 



