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Show 1897.] OF HAIR UPON THE HUMAN BAH 299 born child. He was of a dark complexion and hirsute ; the edges of his little ears were fringed with black hairs showing conspicuously upon the delicate skin of infancy. The direction, or set, of these hairs surprised me. Instead of radiating from the margin of the ear like the cogs of a wheel, or overlapping one another around its edge like the teeth of a ratchet, two streams of hairs approached each other from almost opposite directions until their points crossed and interlaced (see Plate X X . figs. 9, 10, 18, &c). Normal H u m a n Ear. a a, helix; b, anti-helix ; c, concha; d, Darwin's point, e, spina helicis; / lobe. The part of the helix at which the points of the hairs met was that part of the infolded outer rim which is normally somewhat thickened and where a little white nodule is frequently present, the nodule which in later life commonly develops into Darwin's Point. I communicated my discovery to Mr. Darwin and received from him the following letters, now, by permission of his son Mr. Francis Darwin, published for the first time :- I. March 22nd, 1881. Down, Beckenham, Kent. Mr. H. M. Wallis. D E A R SIR, I am very much obliged for your courteous and kind note. The fact which you communicate is quite new to me, and as I was 3 20* |
