Volume 1

The descent of man and selection in relation to sex / by Charles Darwin.

  • Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The descent of man and selection in relation to sex / by Charles Darwin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    nerve; hut Mr. Toynbee,=^^ after collecting all the known evidence on this head, concludes that the external shell is of no distinct use. The ears of the chimpanzee and orang are curiously like those of man, and the proper muscles are likewise but very slightly developed.^ I am also assured by the keepers in the Zoological Gardens that these animals never move or erect their ears ; so that they are in an equally rudimentary condition with those of man, as far as function is concerned. 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 am not satisfied with this view, that owing to their arboreal habits and great strength they were but little exposed to danger, and so during a lengthened period moved their ears but little, and thus gradually lost the power of moving them. This would be a parallel case with that of those large and heavy birds, which, from inhabiting oceanic islands, have not been exposed to the attacks of beasts of prey, and have consequently lost the power of using their wings for flight. The inability to move the ears in man and several apes is, however, partly compensated by the freedom with which they can move the head in a horizontal plane, so as to catch sounds from all directions. It has been asserted that the ear of man alone possesses a lobule; but a rudiment of it is found in the gorillaand, as ^ ' The Diseases of the Ear,' nearly the same conclusion as bv J. Toynhee, F.R.S., 1860, p. that given here. 12. A distinguished physiolo- ^° Prof. A. Macalister, ' An- gist, Prof. Preyer, informs me nals and Mag. of Nat. History,' that he had lately been ex] eri- vol. vii., 1871, p. 342. nieuting on the function of the Mr. St. George Mivart, Bhell of the ear, and has come to ' Elementary Anatomy,' 1873, p. 396.