690 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



glory to her;" and we have seen that in North America a 

 chief was elected solely from the length of his hair. 



Color of the Skin. The hest kind of evidence that in 

 man the color of the skin has been modified through sexual 

 selection is scanty; for in most races the sexes do not differ 

 in this respect, and only slightly, as we have seen, in 

 others. AVe know, however, from the many facts already 

 given that the color of the skin is regarded by the men of 

 all races as a highly important element in their beauty; so 

 that it is a character which would be likely to have been 

 modified through selection, as has occurred in innumerable 

 instances with the lower animals. It seems at first sight a 

 monstrous supposition that the jet blackness of the negro 

 should have been gained through sexual selection; but 

 this view is supported by various analogies, and we know 

 that negroes admire their own color. With mammals 

 when the sexes differ in color the male is often black or 

 much darker than the female; and it depends merely on 

 the form of inheritance whether this or any other tint is 

 transmitted to both sexes or to one alone. The resemblance 

 to a negro in miniature of Pithecia sat anas with his 

 jet-black skin, white rolling eyeballs and hair parted on 

 the top of the head is almost ludicrous. 



The color of the face differs much more widely in the 

 various kinds of monkeys than it does in the races of man; 

 and we have some reason to believe that the red, blue, 

 orange, almost white and black tints of their skin, even 

 when common to both sexes, as well as the bright colors of 

 their fur and the ornamental tufts about the head, have 

 all been acquired through sexual selection. As the order 

 of development during growth generally indicates the order 

 in which the characters of a species have been developed 

 and modified during previous generations, and as the 

 newly born infants of the various races of man do not differ 

 nearly as much in color as do the adults, although their 

 bodies are as completely destitute of hair, we have some 

 slight evidence that the tints of the different races were 

 acquired at a period subsequent to the removal of the hair, 

 which must have occurred at a very early period in the 

 history of man. 



Summary. "We may conclude j,hat the greater size, 



