Chap. XX. ABSENCE OF HAIE. 375 



but those who were at the same time best able to defend 

 and support them. Such well-endowed pairs would 

 commonly rear a larger number of offspring than the 

 less well endowed. The same result would obviously 

 follow in a still more marked manner if there was selec- 

 tion on both sides ; that is if the more attractive, and 

 at the same time more powerful men were to prefer, 

 and were preferred by, the more attractive women. 

 And these two forms of selection seem actually to have 

 occurred, whether or not simultaneously, with mankind, 

 especially during the earlier periods of our long history. 

 We will now consider in a little more detail, rela- 

 tively to sexual selection, some of the characters which 

 distinguish the several races of man from each other 

 and from the loAver animals, namely, the more or less 

 complete absence of hair from the body and the colour 

 of the skin. We need say nothing about the great 

 diversity in the shape of the features and of the skull 

 between the different races, as we have seen in the last 

 chapter how different is the standard of beauty in these 

 respects. These characters will therefore probably have 

 been acted on through sexual selection ; but we have no 

 means of judging, as far as I can see, whether they 

 have been acted on chiefly through the male or female 

 side. The musical faculties of man have likewise been 

 already discussed. 



Absence of Hair on the Body, and its Development on 

 the Face and Head. — From the pi'esence of the woolly 

 hair or lanugo on the human foetus, and of rudimentary 

 hairs scattered over the body during maturity, we may 

 infer that man is descended from some animal which 

 was born hairy and remained so during life. The loss 

 of hair is an inconvenience and probably an injury to 

 man even under a hot climate, for he is thus exposed 

 to sudden chills, especially during wet weather. As 



