Chap. XX.] SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. 341 



mixtures with the Georgians and Circassians, two nations 

 which surpass all the world in personal beauty. There is 

 hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not born of a Geor- 

 gian or Circassian mother." He adds that they inherit 

 their beauty, " not from their ancestors, for without the. 

 above mixture, the men of rank in Persia, who are de- 

 scendants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly." l 

 Here is a more curious case : the priestesses who attended 

 the temple of Venus Erycina at San-Giuliano in Sicily, 

 were selected for their beauty out of the whole of Greece ; 

 they were not vestal virgins, and Quatrefages, 2 who makes 

 this statement, says that the women of San-Giuliano are 

 famous at the present day as the most beautiful in the 

 island, and are sought by artists as models. But it is ob- 

 vious that the evidence in the above cases is doubtful. 



The following case, though relating to savages, is well 

 worth giving from its curiosity. Mr. Winwood Reade 

 informs me that the Jollofs, a tribe of negroes on the 

 west coast of Africa, " are remarkable for their uniformly 

 fine appearance." A friend of his asked one of these men, 

 " How is it that every one whom I meet is so fine-looking, 

 not only your men, bujb your women ? " The Jollof an- 

 swered, "It is very easily explained : it has always been 

 our custom to pick out our worse-looking slaves and to 

 sell them."- It need hardly be added that with all sav- 

 ages female slaves serve as concubines. That this negro 

 should have attributed, whether rightly or wrongly, the 

 fine appearance of his tribe to the long-continued elimina- 

 tion of the ugly women, is not so surprising as it may at 

 first appear ; for I have elsewhere shown that negroes 



1 These quotations are taken from Lawrence (' Lectures on Physiol- 

 ogy, etc. 1822, p. 393), who attributes the beauty of the upper classes in 

 England to the men having long selected the more beautiful women. 



2 <; Anthropologic, " 'Revue des Cours Scientifiques,' Oct. 18C8, p. 

 721. 



