grees of fineness and color, beautifully 

 arranged in order, and all pointing in 

 such directions as will add to the 

 beauty or comfort or terrifying aspect 

 of the animal. 



Not only are our hairs numbered, 

 but each particular hair is furnished 

 with a little individual muscle of its 

 own running from the base of the folli- 

 cle to the inner surface of the true 

 skin, so that when the proper occasion 

 arises for erection of that individual 

 hair the muscle contracts apparently 

 of its own accord, and up stands the 

 hair along with its fellows, ready to 

 frighten the animal that dares to ap- 

 proach in hostile attitude the owner of 

 the precious coat. Similar muscles 

 erect the feathers of the owl, and the 

 gorgeous tail of the peacock dazzles 

 us in the sunlight moved in like man- 

 ner, while to those more powerful der- 

 mal appendages, the claws, talons, and 

 nails, are attached more powerful mus- 

 cles still, with proper nerve connections 

 for the most effective use of the wea- 

 pons nature has formed out of the soft 

 outer skin, which is usually so mild and 

 yielding as to have earned the name of 

 scarf skin. 



This outer skin is formed of cells, 

 flat on the surface, but near the true 

 skin where they originate, rounded and 

 in many cases even tall and apparently 

 reaching out towards the surface. It 

 gives the color to the person by means 

 of pigment cells which lie in its midst. 



The black man is dark because of 

 the abundance of pigment cells in his 

 scarf skin. The albino is light because 

 of their absence. The colors of hair 

 and feathers are due to these cells in 

 their receptacles, but white and iri- 

 descent feathers are doubtless so partly 

 because of their absence and partly be- 

 cause of hollow spaces which catch and 

 reflect or refract the light. 



This arrangement of cells into scarf 

 skin has much to do with the healing 

 of wounds. In cases of old sores that 

 refuse to heal, or where the skin has 

 been extensively destroyed, the doc- 

 tors have found that good, healthy skin 

 may be grafted upon the sores in such a 

 manner as to invigorate and perfect 

 the process of healing. Small particles 

 of fresh skin taken from a healthy sub- 



ject or from some other part of the 

 patient's body are placed upon the sore, 

 the portions used being about the size 

 of a small pinhead, and new life seems 

 transplanted in the deadened part. 

 The skin of a black man grafted upon 

 that of a white man shows afterwards 

 no trace of its origin, but becomes the 

 same shade as that which it adjoins. 



Several animals change their tints to 

 correspond with their surroundings. 

 This subject has been exaggerated by 

 observersof an imaginative turn of mind, 

 but the fact remains that there is a de- 

 cided change in the coloring of certain 

 crabs and shrimps as well as in soles, 

 chameleons, tree-frogs, and two kinds 

 of horned toads wherever they are found 

 against any well-defined shade or color, 

 Some have maintained that man takes 

 on a tint somewhat resembling the soil 

 of the territory where he abides in an 

 uncivilized condition, but Beddard con- 

 siders Schweinfurth's statement that 

 the Bongos have a reddish-brown skin 

 similar to the soil of their country, and 

 the Dinhas, their neighbors, are as 

 black as their alluvial ground, merely as 

 an account of what is purely accidental 

 in the instances given. 



The coloring of most fish so that they 

 cannot readily be seen by looking down 

 into the water because of the blackness 

 of their backs, is highl) protective. And 

 the fact is more apparent when we note 

 that an enemy looking at the same fish 

 from below is hindered in discovery be- 

 cause the white under parts of the fish 

 are hard to distinguish against the light 

 of the sky above. Nearly all the pro- 

 tective color markings of animals are 

 modifications of the scarf skin. 



The true skin is of great interest both 

 because it is the seat of what is called 

 the sense of touch and because it 's 

 used so extensively m the arts in the 

 form of leather. 



Nerves of sensation expand over the 

 whole surface of the body, and their 

 minute branchings in the skin make 

 contact with other substances highly 

 discernible. But the sense of touch is 

 peculiarly developed in few of the lower 

 animals, and we may almost regard it 

 as an attribute of man alone. Our 

 ability to turn our fingers about things 

 and move our hands over their surface 



139 



