Chap I. KUDIMENTS. 25 



thus scattered over the body are the rudiments of the 

 uniform hairy coat of the lower animals. This view 

 is rendered all the more probable, as it is known that 

 fine, short, and pale-coloured hairs on the limbs and 

 other parts of the body occasionally become developed 

 into " thickset, long, and rather coarse dark hairs," 

 when abnormally nourished near old-standing inflamed 

 surfaces. 29 



I am informed by Mr. Paget that persons belonging 

 to the same family often have a few hairs in their eye- 

 brows much longer than the others ; so that this slight 

 peculiarity seems to be inherited. These hairs appa- 

 rently represent the vibrissa?, which are used as organs 

 of touch by many of the lower animals. In a young 

 chimpanzee I observed that a few upright, rather long, 

 hairs, projected above the eyes, where the true eyebrows, 

 if present, would have stood. 



The tine wool-like hair, or so-called lanugo, with 

 which the human foetus during the sixth month is 

 thickly covered, offers a more curious case. It is first 

 developed, during the fifth month, on the eyebrows and 

 face, and especially round the mouth, where it is much 

 longer than that on the head. A moustache of this kind 

 was observed by Eschricht 30 on a female foetus ; but this 

 is not so surprising a circumstance as it may at first ap- 

 pear, for the two sexes generally resemble each other in 

 all external characters during an early period of growth. 

 The direction and arrangement of the hairs on all parts 

 of the foetal body are the same as in the adult, but are 

 subject to much variability. The whole surface, including 

 even the forehead and ears, is thus thickly clothed ; but 

 it is a significant fact that the palms of the hands and 



29 Paget, ' Lectures on Surgical Pathology,' 1S53, vol. i. p. 71. 



30 Eschricht, ibid. s. 40, 47. 



