4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 85 



the direction of growth of the hair on different. parts of the crown, 

 also from varying the length and quality of the hair on the chest, 

 shoulders, tail, and legs, and from making contrasts, often more 

 striking than the one seen in the white-lipped guenon shown on 

 Plate I, in the color of different portions of the skin itself. All of 

 these elements of color and hair growth are combined and recombined 

 in a variety that seems to be without end. 



On no part of the primate form is patterning so conspicuously 

 developed as on the head, where strikingly marked color designs of 

 both hair and skin are profusely exhibited, and where tufts, beards, 

 moustaches, whiskers, and crests are brought into varied contrast with 

 areas of short hair and bare skin. 



PATTERNING ON THE HUMAN HEAD 



In conformity with this universal primate trait human patterning 

 shows itself more conspicuously on the head than on the body or limbs. 



The human head pattern is not exactly duplicated by any other 

 primate, but all the elements that enter into it can be easily found in 

 nonhuman members of the order. The usual head pattern of the young 

 adult Caucasian is shown in Plate 2, Figures i and 2. Characteristics 

 that both sexes have in common are the completely haired cranium, 

 the bald forehead, nose, and upper median part of the cheeks, and 

 the presence of a narrow transverse hairy strip on the forehead over 

 each eye. The female's pattern differs from the male's in an extension 

 of the bare area downward over the entire lower part of the face and 

 sideways to the ears. 



In most primates the forehead and face, except the region im- 

 mediately bordering the eyes, nose and mouth, are thickly haired. 

 The first step in the process of baring the forehead is shown by one 

 of the Celebean macaques, Magus hecki (pi. 2, fig. 3). Other steps 

 have been taken by some of the South American monkeys ; while 

 an essentially human forehead can be found in the orang (pi. 2, figs. 

 4, 6). The bare or nearly bare lower part of the face seen in the 

 females of all human races, and in the males of those races in which 

 the beard is slightly developed, is presaged by the very common 

 occurrence among other primates of a short-haired, nearly bare area 

 around the mouth (shown by all of the monkeys represented on pi. i). 

 Extensions of this bare area on the cheeks may be seen in the great 

 apes. It is carried farther in some of the South American monkeys, 

 culminating, apparently, in the '* cotton head," Oedipomidas oedipus 

 (pi. 2, fig. 5), which has reached a stage slightly more advanced than 

 that of the human female. 



