104 



sidering that the bulb of the hair is not the root. The thing made is 

 alone removed, not the part that makes it ; that remains behind, and 

 cannot well he separated, mthout sepaxatmg the whole skin with it. If 

 the nail should be torn off, and its matiix left entire, it would grow again 

 like the hair. 



It is a matter of some interest to note the direction in which hairs, 

 fur, &c., usually lie, and to mark the evident design of the an-angement. 

 Throughout the whole of the animal kingdom, we notice one law holding 

 good respecting them, viz : that they all lie in a direction away from the 

 head. On the head itself there is some little variety in the starting 

 point. On man, the vertex or crown is tlie place whence all the hairs 

 radiate. In horses, cows, sheep, &c., the point is high up in the 

 forehead. In the mouse, mole, and rat, it is at the tip of the nose. In 

 the fish and serpent, the scales, the representatives of hair, are all lying in 

 a direction from the mouth. In the bird, the feathers lie away from 

 the beak ; the point is occasionally prolonged along the median line of 

 the dorsal surface of the body, in which case the hairs in its immediate 

 neighbourhood lie at right angles with it, rather than parallel. This is 

 well seen in the mane of horses, and the sort of comb often existing along 

 the spine of certain deer. 



The design of this is not so evident in man, as it is in the lower 

 animals, whose coats are given them for warmth and protection against 

 the weather. In them we can understand the intention the best, by 

 imagining what w^ould be the result, supposing an opposite direction had 

 been given to the fur, &c. ; in that case, a deer when running would have 

 every hair standing on end, and opposing the rapidity of its flight by 

 the enormous friction of their whole number — the air, too, would enter 

 freely between each, and the animal would be almost as cool as if his skin 

 was bare. The fish, in swimming, would have to go backwards whenever 

 he was in a huny ; and the swallow would find that the faster he wished to 

 fly, the more determined his feathers were to prevent him. The mole, 

 mouse, and rat, with a variety of others, would soon have their skins 

 choked up with dirt, caught up in their numerous burrowings ; and the 

 diving birds when they made their plunge, would find themselves sud- 

 denly stopped at the surface of the water, by their distended feathers, 

 acting as a sort of float or parachute. 



The exceptions to this law respecting the dii'ection of hair are very 

 few — they are to be met with chiefly in those instances where a par- 

 ticular purpose has to be served. 



Thus for example we have hairs converging to a centre in the stig- 

 mata of insects, where their intention is to keep out dust. We see the 



