680 "THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



would Succeed in rearing a greater average number of off- 

 spring than the weaker and poorer members of the same 

 tribe. There can, also, be no doubt that such men would 

 generally be able to select the more attractive women. At 

 present the chiefs of nearly every tribe throughout the 

 world succeed in obtaining more than one wife. I hear 

 from Mr. Mantell tliat until recently almost every girl in 

 New Zealand who was pretty or promised to be pretty was 

 tapu to some chief. With the Kafirs, as Mr. C. Hamilton 

 states,* **tlie chiefs generally have the pick of the women 

 for many miles round and are most persevering in estab- 

 lishing or confirming their privilege." We have seen that 

 each race has its own style of beauty, and we know that it 

 is natural to man to admire each characteristic point in 

 his domestic animals, dress, ornaments and personal appear- 

 ance when carried a little beyond the average. If, then, 

 the several foregoing propositions be admitted, and I 

 cannot see that they are doubtful, it would be an inex- 

 plicable circumstance if the selection of the more attractive 

 women by the more powerful men of each tribe who would 

 rear on an average a greater number of children did not 

 after the lapse of many generations somewhat modify the 

 character of the tribe. 



When a foreign breed of our domestic animals is intro- 

 duced into a new country, or when a native breed is long 

 and carefully attended to, either for use or ornament, it is 

 found after several generations to have undergoue a greater 

 or less amount of change whenever the means of compari- 

 son exist. This follows from unconscious selection during 

 a long series of generations that is, the preservation of the 

 most approved individuals without any wish or expecta- 

 tion of such a result on the part of the breeder. So again, 

 if during many years two careful breeders rear animals of 

 the same family, and do not compare them together or 

 with a common standard, the animals are found to have 

 become, to the surprise of their owners, slightly different, f 

 Each breeder has impressed, as Von Nathusius well ex- 

 presses it, the character of his own mind his own taste 

 and judgment on his animals. What reason, then, can 



* "Anthropological Review," Jan., 1870, p. xvi. 

 f " The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. 

 ii, pp. 210-217. 



