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Show 304 MR. H. M. WALLIS ON THE GROWTH [Mar. 2, yellow hairs. This is a specimen in spirit in the Oxford University Museum. iii. Ears of Adults. In life this infantile growth is soon shed, but in later middle age a hairy covering sometimes reappears and may be noticed in black-haired m e n of coarse skin and hirsute habit of body more frequently than in others, although I have recently observed the ears of a m a n of about forty, fresh complexioned, dark red moustache, pale red hair, which exhibited almost all the phenomena I have described. The hairs, wdiich were straw-coloured and very numerous, grew thickly upon the backs of the ears, fringed the edges of the helix, and had well-marked lines of growth. I transcribe from m y notes the following particulars of a case (see Plate X I X . figs. 4, 5) :-" T. F., cetat. circa 44. Dark, hirsute, bilious temperament. Hair of face, head, hands, and wrists black. That upon the helix is soft, pale, and fine : it converges from both sides (above and below) upon a well-marked Darwin's Point, but does not cross tips at that point, nor is there a tuft there. Thicker hairs clothe the lower part of the anti-helix, aud, pointing downwards at first, follow one another round the edge of the spina hellcis, and changing their direction point upwards towards Darwin's Point. The phenomenon was better defined upon the left than upon the right ear. The subject was restive and difficult to examine. The sketch was completed at some personal risk." Another instance (Plate X I X . figs. 6 & 7) is the ear of a dark-skinned black-haired man of about fifty, of a similar type, remarkable as having eyebrows of unusual fullness, each down-curving in a tuft of bristles, the longer of which are fully two inches in length. The moustache full and black, inclining to grey. The ears were large and well-shaped, Darwin's Point easily located. The back of the ear covered with pale down made up of minute hairs, the whole edge fringed with small pale hairs with distinct direction, the two growths meeting and crossing tips on the outer edge of the helix close to Darwin's Point. Besides these almost colourless hairs there was a strong growth of pale brown hair, one inch in length, upon the spina hellcis directed upward and backward in the main, and a more characteristic growth upon the upper edge of the helix of dark half-inch bristles curving strongly and regularly around its edges towards Darwin's Point. In this, as in the case of figs. 4, 5, and the case of the red-haired person, the hairs upon the ears were all paler than those upon the head. This phenomenon is not rare; any good observer will meet with instances among his acquaintance; but though well-marked examples are not uncommon, they are usually disinclined to lend themselves to research. The majority of ears, whether of adults or of children other than infants, show no hairs, or where a w eak and straggling growth has persisted in spite of constant friction and depilatory influences, there is seldom any visible direction or " set" traceable. |