THIRD DAY'S SITTING. 59 



then have to say, " these hairs apparently represent the 

 vibrissae." It is clear he is not quite certain on this 

 point. 



Lord C. Why, then, does he put it forward as evidence ? 



Homo. A drowning nian, my Lord, will catch at a straw, 

 or even at a hair, if he can find one to catch at. 



Darwin. "In a young chimpanzee," my Lord, "I ob- 

 served that a few upright, rather long hairs projected above 

 the eyes, where the true eyebrows, if present, would have 

 scood." (Vol. i. p. 25.) 



Homo. I do not see, my Lord, that this fact helps Mr. 

 Darwin in the least. Nor does the farther fact on which, 

 however, he makes no comment that man possesses eye- 

 brows at all. He has told us " rudimentary organs " are 

 " either abFolutely useless," or of very " slight service to 

 their present possessors." Now, our eyebrows, while con- 

 tributing much to the comeliness and beauty of the human 

 frame, are certainly of no use to us whatever. We could 

 get on very well without them. How came we then to 

 possess them ? On the principle of Natural Selection, we 

 ought to have been destitute of these hairy appendages to 

 the brow. 



Lord C. Perhaps Sexual Selection will account for the 

 eyebrows. 



Homo. That is very questionable, my Lord. Some savage 

 tribes eradicate their eyebrows, and, according to Mr. Darwin, 

 man was originally a savage. 



Darwin. My Lord, " the fine wool-like hair, or so-called 

 lanugo, with which the human foetus, during the sixth 

 month, is thickly covered, offers a more curious case. It 

 is first developed during the fifth month on the eyebrows 

 and face, and especially round the mouth, where it is much 



longer than that on the head The whole surface, 



E 2 



