670 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



Georgian 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 descend- 

 ants of the Tartars, would be extremely ugly."* 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,f who states the foregoing 

 fact, says that the women of San Giuliano are now famous 

 as the most beautiful in the island, and are sought by 

 artists as models. But it is obvious that the evidence in 

 all the above cases is doubtful. 



The following case, though relating to savages, is well 

 worth giving from its curiosity. Mr. Winwood Reade in- 

 forms 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, but your women?" The Jollof an- 

 swered: *'It is very easily explained; it has always been 

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

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

 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 elimination 

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

 appear: for I have elsewhere shownj that negroes fully 

 appreciate the importance of selection in the breeding of 

 their domestic animals, and I could give from Mr. Reade 

 additional evidence on this head. 



The Causes Which Prevent or Cliech the Action of Sexual 

 Selection with Savages. The chief causes are, first so- 

 called communal marriages or promiscuous intercourse ; 

 early betrothals; and, lastly, the low estimation in which 



* These quotations are taken from Lawrence (" Lectures on Physi- 

 ology," etc., 1822, p. 393), who attributes the beauty of the upper 

 classes in England to the men having long selected the more beau- 

 tiful women. 



f ' Anthropologic," "Revue des Cours Scientifique," Oct., 1868, 

 p. 721. 



f'The Variation of Animals and Plants under DomesticatioL . *' 

 vol. i, p. 207. 



