so kind as to observe, if any opportunity should occur, whether the
platysma contracts during extreme terror, as before an operation; and
secondly, whether it contracts during a shivering fit. Several persons are
observing for me, but I receive most discordant results.

I beg you to present my most respectful and kind compliments to your
honoured father [Sir G.B. Airy].


LETTER 474. TO FRANCIS GALTON.

(474/1. Mr. Galton had written on November 7th, 1872, offering to send to
various parts of Africa Darwin's printed list of questions intended to
guide observers on expression. Mr. Galton goes on: "You do not, I think,
mention in "Expression" what I thought was universal among blubbering
children (when not trying to see if harm or help was coming out of the
corner of one eye) of pressing the knuckles against the eyeballs, thereby
reinforcing the orbicularis.")

Down, November 8th [1872].

Many thanks for your note and offer to send out the queries; but my career
is so nearly closed that I do not think it worth while. What little more I
can do shall be chiefly new work. I ought to have thought of crying
children rubbing their eyes with their knuckles, but I did not think of it,
and cannot explain it. As far as my memory serves, they do not do so
whilst roaring, in which case compression would be of use. I think it is
at the close of the crying fit, as if they wished to stop their eyes
crying, or possibly to relieve the irritation from the salt tears. I wish
I knew more about the knuckles and crying.