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Here again, therefore, comparative anatomy enables us to trace with certainty the human ear to the similar, but more developed, organ of the lower mammals. At the same time, comparative physiology shows that it was a more or less useful implement in the latter, but it is quite useless in the anthropoids and man. The conducting of the sound has scarcely been affected by the loss of the pinna.
The pinnate from pinna, Latin for feather' leaves are composed of from nine to twenty-five leaflets, which are egg-shaped, with a short point, very smooth, light green above and still lighter beneath. These leaves are much liked by cattle, and they are said to be very nutritious to them."
We were reading an account of the pinna the other day, and very much regretted that your pinna's brown silk tuft had been eaten by the mice what will they not eat? they have eaten my thimble case! I am sorry to say that, from these last accounts of the pinna and his cancer friend, Dr. Darwin's beautiful description is more poetic than accurate.
Sea-slugs in almost endless form and variety of hue, and many other strange sea things, were among the inhabitants of the reef a closely packed arena of never-ceasing slaughter. In the middle of a clump of brown seaweed, which had fallen apart like the neatly dressed hair of a woman, was a black streak, signifying the gape of a wedge-shaped mollusc known as a pinna.
Coal-black pearls occur in one of the pinnas, the interior of which is sooty, shot with iridescent purple, and since the pearl, whether produced by oyster, mussel, pinna, or window-shell, is generally more brilliant than the containing shell, that of the black pinna, with the high lights of its environment concentrated, may be a gem of surpassing novelty and beauty.
Directly the valves were prised apart the pearl fell into my hand. Never before had I seen one so loosely retained within its shell. Generally, in the case of the pinna, pearls are embedded in the muscles or soft parts, and are not primarily discernible, but have to be sought for by passing the "meat" through the fingers.
In the common catarrhine ancestors of the anthropoids and man the degeneration set in with the folding together of the pinna. This brought about the helix of the ear, in which we find the significant angle which represents the relic of the salient point of the ear in our earlier simian ancestors.
These two keep the PINNA company the lively shrimp, pinkish brown and green with pin-point black eyes, and the little eel as bright and as transparent yet as dull and insipid as glass.
"They certainly did!" nodded Josef. "Along the Mediterranean were several places where they manufactured pinna thread. They even spun some fine, silky fabrics from it. But they never could get enough of the filament to make the industry practical, although in 1754 they did send to Pope Benedict XIV some stockings made from pinna silk.
In some individuals this process is well developed. It can only be explained as the relic of the original point of the ear, which has been turned inwards in consequence of the curving of the edge. If we compare the pinna of man and the various apes in this respect, we find that they present a connected series of degenerate structures.
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