302 SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. [Part IL 



inhabit the nortlicrn islands of the Japan archipelago. 

 But the laws of inheritance are so complex that we can 

 seldom understand their action. If the greater hairiness 

 of certain races he the result of reversion, unchecked by 

 any form of selection, the extreme variability of this char- 

 acter, even within the limits of the same race, ceases to be 

 remarkable. 



With respect to the beard, if we turn to our best 

 guide, namely the Quadrumana, we find beards equally 

 well developed in both sexes of many species, but in 

 others, either confined to the males, or more developed 

 in them than in the females. From this fact, and from 

 the curious arrangement, as well as the bright colors, of 

 the hair about the heads of many monkeys, it is highly 

 probable, as before explained, that the males first ac- 

 quired their beards as an ornament through sexual selec- 

 tion, transmitting them in most cases, in an equal or near- 

 ly equal degree, to their offspring of both sexes. We 

 know from Eschricht " that, with mankind, the female as 

 well as the male foetus is furnished with much hair on the 

 face, especially round the mouth ; and this indicates that 

 we are descended from a progenitor of which both sexes 

 were bearded. It appears therefore at first sight prob- 

 able that man has retained his beard from a very early 

 period, while woman lost her beard at the same time 

 when her body became almost completely divested of 

 hair. Even the color of the beard with mankind seems to 



smootli bodies. It should be particularly observed that pure blacks 

 and mulattoes were included in the above enumeration ; and this is an 

 unfortunate circumstance, as in accordance with the principle, the truth 

 o*" which I have elsewhere proved, crossed races would be eminently 

 liable to revert to the primordial hairy character of their early ape-like 

 progenitors. 



** " Ueber die Richtung dcr Haare am Menschlichen Ktirper," in 

 Miiller's ' Archiv fiir Anat. und Phys.' 1837, s. 40. 



