1910-11.] Anatomy of the Head of the Australian Aboriginal. 615 
Of the anthropological literature, Holl (44) treats of the position of the 
ear on the head. Before him, Henle, Hyrtl, Harless, Hasse, and Langer 
had already treated of the subject, and Langer has pointed out that the 
only correct determination of the position of the ear on the head is the 
position of the meatus acusticus externus and its positional relation to the 
vertical dimension. This usually falls in the middle of a line connecting 
the vertex of the head with the angulus mandibulse, the projection being 
on a vertical plane. Higher or lower positions of the meatus indicate 
individual, racial, or age peculiarities in the height formation of the brain 
and of the facial skeleton. In very high brain skulls, or in low mandibular 
facial skeletons, the meatus acusticus externus is displaced downwards on 
this vertical. 
In the three Australian heads employed in the present research the 
distance from vertex to angulus mandibulse, the distance from vertex to 
meatus acusticus externus, and the average relation of the latter distance 
to the former, are as follows : — 
Number. 
Vertex to 
Angulus. 
Vertex to 
Meatus. 
Percentage. 
1 
167 
134 
7P6 
2 
188 
129 
68-6 
3 
178 
125 
70-3 
From these figures two facts follow : first, that in the Australian ab- 
original the position of the meatus acusticus externus is not in the middle of 
the vertex-angulus vertical, but is rather more than two-thirds of the distance 
downwards, that is, caudally; and second, that as the Australian is not 
characterised by great height of skull, the low position must be due, 
according to Holl’s work, to a low mandibular facial skeleton. 
Karutz (45) has devoted a large amount of attention to the anthropology 
of the ear. He states that of all ear measurements the one which has 
received most consideration is the ear length; but if people are simply 
grouped according to this measurement it equally simply results that tall 
races have long ears, and vice versa. The relative ear length to the bodily 
height is a more instructive comparison, and shows that Mongolians, 
Americans, Finns, Malays, and Micronesians are “ long-eared ” ; Papuans, 
Australians, and Polynesians are moderately “ long-eared ” ; whilst the 
genuinely “short-eared” include the Negroes, Bushman, and Cingalese. 
As Karutz’s work only came to my notice after the bulk of the present 
investigation was completed, I regret that I have not the available data of 
