certain muscles which are brought into use in squatting. These facets are not found on the bones of adult Europeans. As Dr. Charles found that those facets are well-marked not only on the leg-bones of adult Punjaubi but also on those of the infant or foetus he concluded that those markings are instances of the transmission of acquired characters. The total disappearance of the markings on the European skeleton is ascribed to the change of habit as a result of which the possession of the facets would be of no advantage. But he does not appear to have exmamined the European foetus-in-utero and this is the weak point in the argument. Professor Macalister has shewn to the writer from Specimens preserved in the Anatomical Museum at Cambridge, that the facets on the tibia where it fits on to the astragalus and which are supposed by Dr.Charles to be a peculiarity of the tibiae of the Punjaubi are seen also in the foetus of the European. The only legitimate induction which can be drawn from these differences is therefore that the facets disappear in the adult European through disuse. There is no evidence to show that there is any transmission of acquired characters.
Numerous cases have been recorded by botanists and zoologists of what they regard as genuine cases of the transmission of characters which have been acquired by the individual. Eimiens in his book on Organic Evolution brings forward many instances. But in the majority of these one cannot exclude the possibility
