INTEGUMENTARY SYSTEM 101 



case, whether the sexual character has not been gradually lost 

 in consequence of the hair having been persistently removed 

 for ornamental purposes, in accordance with a certain standard 

 of beauty. Among the aborigines of America, the custom of 

 carefully eradicating every hair from the face is well known to 

 be practised, and the same custom probably prevails among the 

 other tribes quoted above, thus causing gradual atrophy of the 

 hair papillae. Assuming Darwin to be correct in his view that 

 both sexes of the anthropoid ancestors of man possessed a 

 beard, it is to be inferred that the transmission of this character 

 to the male sex alone, as is the case among the higher races, 

 has been brought about by sexual selection, and that the absence 

 of a beard in the above-mentioned lower races is to be regarded 

 as a regressive phenomenon, though equally the result of sexual 

 selection. 



It was formerly asserted that eyebrows were not present 

 in any of the monkeys. It has been shown, however, by 

 R. Hartmann that tufts of hairs are to be found in the apes in 

 the region of the middle section of the arcus supraorbitalis 

 similar to those in the other mammals (beasts of prey, ruminants, 

 etc.). 



Yet another character possessed by man in common with 

 the other mammals is the arrangement of the hair in groups of 

 two, three, or five hairs together. In the foetus this is invariably 

 the case, 1 and Wiedersheim 2 has found that it is frequently 

 retained to adult age, each single hair on the head being accom- 

 panied by one to three fine short hairs, analogous to the group 

 of hairs in an animal. Hence we find 3 that from each follicle 

 spring several hairs, which are either similar or dissimilar as a 

 complex follicle produces one thick hair together with a number 

 of fine wool-like hairs, but there is no justification for the view 

 that this arrangement of the hair on the head is exclusively 

 characteristic of man. 



The so-called woolly hair of the negro in no way resembles 

 the wool of the sheep. Sheep's wool consists of close tufts of 

 fine, wavy hair ; the hair of the negro is also curly and arranged 



1 Kolliker, Handbuch d. Gewebelehre d. Menschen, 1859, p. 120. 



2 Wiedersheim, loc. cit., p. 8. 



:J C. Gegenbauer, Gnmdziige der vergl. Anat., 1873, p. 88. 



