114 PROC. COTTESWOLD CLUB vol. xiii. (2) 



bipedal gait was obtained. This brought about a con- 

 siderable differentiation in fore and hind limbs — the 

 latter became longer, the former became shorter ; the 

 latter lost much of the grasping ability, the former acquired 

 more tactual ability. Further, the bipedal position required 

 very remarkable modification in the skeletal structure, and 

 it induced, together with the necessity for providing 

 greater brain-accommodation, a decrease of prognathism. 

 While these changes were going on there was another in 

 progress which produced a curious change of appearance 

 — the animal lost nearly the whole hairy coat from all 

 parts of the body, even from the head* — so that our 

 human ancestor became almost as destitute of hair as a 

 deal board. t 



In other characters he was probably much like a negro, 

 only shorter in stature, longer armed, longer footed, more 

 prognathous, and of a reddish-brown colour. ijl 



This is my idea of what Haeckel would call the 24th- 

 stage. 



* There may have been a little hair on the head and on the back ; but it almost 

 seems as if for a short period of development there was a stage of complete hairlessness. 



t Loss of the typical mammalian hairy coat has not been confined to Man. At a 

 rather later date it occurred in other cases, for instance, in the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, 

 Hippopotamus, etc. 



+ Both in the Semitic and the Indo-German languages the roots which gave a word 

 for " earth " also gave a word for "Man"; as if both "Man" and "earth" were named 

 from what they possessed in common — a reddish-brown colour. 



And the negro infant is not black, but of a reddish colour, shewing that the 

 blackness of the negro is not primitive. 



But it may be asked if some of the now light races have been through a black stage, 

 and then retrograded. There is this to be said, — they represent their gods as black. 

 Ehvorthy, in his work on "The Evil Eye," gives a list of Hindoo, Egyptian, Greek, Roman 

 Christian, etc., deities and deified persons who are represented as being black ; and he says 

 (p. 190) : " In India, the infant Chrishna, the incarnate deity, in the arms of Devaki 



the child is black with woolly hair — a thing strange in India." How is this to 



be explained ? The people with black deities have either been through a negroid stage, 

 or they have been subservient to a negroid race. 



