These people were, however, not the only lunatics at large. For this extraordinary practice found its devotees in many other widely sundered parts of the world. Deformed heads of various types have been found in rock-tombs near Tiflis, in the Crimea, Hungary, Silesia, in South Germany, Switzerland, and even in France, Belgium and England! How did it spread from one nation to another? Since means of communication were extremely limited centuries ago, one can only suppose that in most cases it arose independently. It is possible that the idea started with the unintentional deformations of the head which follow the practice of carrying the child during early infancy. It is well known that if a child be constantly carried on one arm, so that one side of the head continuously presses against the shoulder, a more or less marked asymmetry of the skull results. It would be enough for the head of one of the chief’s children to show a rather unusually marked asymmetry of this kind for every mother to endeavour to copy the defect, for imitation ever was the sincerest form of flattery! To place these superficial, non-transmissible, artificially created features, such as deformed heads, mutilated teeth and ears, and so on, in the same category as the “secondary sexual characters” of the lower animals which are physical, inherent and transmissible features, is to ensure confusion of thought. The one represents a physical, the other an emotional development. The persistence of certain forms of mutilation esteemed beautiful in human society is not to be attributed to Sexual selection, or to “preferential mating,” for these things are not only non-transmissible features, but outside the sway of the amorous instincts, as is shown by the case of those individuals who, living in a community where deformed heads are _de rigueur_, have heads of normal shape. So soon as such perversions become a part and parcel of everyday life, they become essential to the general well-being and comfort of their possessors, enabling them to follow their normal avocations without exciting the dislike or wounding the prejudices of their neighbours. The absence of the “tribal sign” alienates the esteem and comradeship of his neighbours and brings an unenviable notoriety. In like manner albinos among birds, for example, are hunted down by their fellows and killed, and birds of exotic species conspicuous by reason of their unfamiliar appearance are treated in the same manner. The sexual instincts have no part in this.