EVIDENCE FROM ARRANGEMENT OF HAIR 47 



bachelor does, of making his posture comfortable and restful when 

 he was not out at work, and he varied his plans by resting his 

 forearms on his thigh, crouched up and cosy, and doubtless slept 

 much in this attitude. All these bold departures from his lemur- 

 ancestor's habits had the necessary result of altering the slope of 

 his hair on the forearms, which was now growing as long and coarse 

 as we see it to-day in the orang. In course of milleniums the 

 ancient forces yielded to those of the new armies, and the once 

 normal slope became reversed in a way which shocked the con- 

 servative lemurs of his day. It requires little imagination to see 

 how the lengthening thickening hairs on this limb-segment became 

 changed in their direction by friction against the opposing surfaces 

 of the thighs, by gravitation, and the frequent dripping of rain 

 when they were held up to grasp a bough. Here then we see at 

 work new forces of friction, pressure, gravitation and dripping of 

 rain, turning endlessly and slowly the lemur-fashion into the ape- 

 fashion, with unlimited time for their effectual action. In this 

 stock of Man's ancestry Selection was taking care of the individual 

 and Habit of the details of his making — two truly harmonious 

 partners. 



From Ape to Man. 



Another step, and a long one, has still to be taken from the 

 ape-fashion to that of man. Bearing in mind that the lemur- 

 fashion has been totally reversed by the ape it startles one to find 

 that man in liis modem fashion has largely reverted to that of the 

 lemur on the front and sides of his forearm. This is clearly shown 

 in Figure 1. There also you see graphically recorded in the hair 

 of the extensor border of the ulna, a little backward streak, a poor 

 little legacy of fifty pounds from the fortunes of many thousands 

 once possessed by the ape. From the present limited point of view, 

 man is a veritable pauper, and his possessions in this limb-segment 

 may with some irony well be called a " vestige." 



Professor Scott-Elliott in his book, Prehistoric Man and His 

 Story, p. 60, goes rather wide of the mark here in his graphic picture 

 of our rude ancestor and his hard life. He gives too strongly the 

 idea of him sitting asleep in raging gales, in driving rain which is 

 neatly conducted by the thatch of his hair off his skin. As far 

 as it goes this need not be questioned, as a matter of probability, 

 but he states far too broadly " The hair on the arm, even of those 

 civilised men who retain sufficient to trace the arrangement, turns 

 down both upper and forearm to the elbow "* — true as to the 



1 Prehistoric Man and His Story, p. 60 



