The Descent of Man 1 5 



the lively colours or by the peculiarities as to hair possessed 

 by the males, while it is also notorious that their vastly 

 superior strength of body and length of fang would render 

 resistance on the part of the female difficult and perilous, even 

 were we to adopt the utterly gratuitous supposition, that at 

 seasons of sexual excitement the female shows any disposition 

 to cojrness. Mr. Darwin has no facts to bring forward to 

 prove the exercise of any choice on the part of female apes, 

 but gives in support of his views the following remarkable 

 passage : — 



* Must we attribute to mere purposeless variability in the male 

 all these appendages of hair and skin % It cannot be denied that this 

 is possible ; for, with many domesticated quadrupeds, certain charac- 

 ters, apparently not derived through reversion from any wild parent- 

 form, have appeared in, and are confined to, the males, or are more 

 largely developed in them than in the females — for instance, the 

 hump in the male zebu-cattle of India, the tail in fat-tailed rams, the 

 arched outline of the forehead in the males of several breeds of 

 sheep, the mane in the ram of an African breed ; and, lastly, the 

 mane, long hairs on the hinder legs, and the dewlap in the male 

 alone of the Berbura goat.' — Vol. ii. p. 284. 



If these are due, as is probable, to simple variabihty, then, 

 he adds — 



' it would appear reasonable to extend the same view to the many 

 analogous characters occurring in animals under a state of nature. 

 Nevertheless, I cannot persuade myself that this view is applicable 

 in many cases, as in that of the extraordinary development of hair on 

 the throat and fore-legs of the male Ammotragus, or of the immense 

 beard of the Pithecia (monkey).' — Vol. ii. p. 285. 



But one naturally asks, Why not ? Mr. Darwin gives no 

 reason beyond that (if such it may be caUed) implied in the 

 gratuitous use of the epithet 'purposeless' in the passage 

 cited, and to which we shall return. 



In the Ehesus monkey, the female appears to be more 

 vividly coloured than the male ; therefore Mr. Darwin infers 



