January 7, 1897] 
nature of these characters, it is not out of place to appraise the 
evidential value of certain of them. 
The direction of the hair-slope on three regions of the body, 
as bearing upon the simian ancestry of man, will be first con- 
sidered. e 
-~ (1) On the upper extremity of man the direction of the 
hair-slope, which may for the sake of brevity be called the 
Human Type, is as follows :—On the upper arm the slope is all 
downwards to the elbow, with a slightly oblique direction on the 
anterior surface. This direction appears to be the same as that 
in all the monkeys examined. 
But on-the fore-arm the Hwan Type is as follows :— 
On the flexor surface the stream of hair divides and passes’ 
obliquely to the radial and ulnar borders respectively, and to the 
carpus. On the extensor surface the slope continues on the 
radial side in a direction at right angles to the long axis of the 
limb, and gradually curls backwards over the posterior surface 
of the ulna, joining a corresponding ‘‘ backwash ” of the stream 
of hair from the ulnar border. Thus, on a small area amounting 
to about a fourth of the extensor surface, the united stream of 
hair passes directly to the elbow. 
This description is based upon the examination of numerous 
fore-arms, hairy and non-hairy ; of infants a few days old and 
three months old, of children from seven to fourteen years 
old, of adults male and female—among the adults five very 
hairy male subjects. In all of these fore-arms, as far as the 
scanty hair on some would allow one to observe it, there 
was very little departure from the Azan Type as described. 
In the cases of infants, the hairs were very minute and re- 
quired a lens to reveal them. The direction stated is easy to 
verify or to disprove ; but it is surprising to find such a state- 
ment as occurs in ‘* Darwin and after Darwin,” by the late 
Prof. Romanes, where, on page 89, he says, ‘‘again, in all men 
the rudimentary hair on the upper and lower arm is directed 
towards the elbow—a peculiarity which occurs nowhere else 
in the animal kingdom, with the exception of the anthropoid 
apes and a few American monkeys. . . .” With this statement 
Prof. Komanes and Prof. Drummond seem to have remained 
satisfied, though their own fore-arms, and those of every person 
they might have examined, would have told a different tale, 
either with or without the assistance of a lens. The statement 
of Prof. Roianes clearly refers to the permanent hair of the 
body, as shown by his illustrations, and not to the lanugo or 
temporary hair. 
The direction of the hair-slope on the fore-arm of the 
anthropoid apes—the Anthropotd Ape Typfe—is certainly what 
is stated by Romanes and Drummond, viz. towards the elbow 
with a slightly lateral direction both on the flexor and extensor 
surfaces, except in the orang, in which the slope is all directly 
to the elbow. This is to be seen in all the anthropoid apes 
at the Zoological Society’s Gardens, London, in the case of 
the gorilla, chimpanzee, and gibbon hoolock, and in the case 
of the orang at the Natural History Museum, South Ken- 
sington, where also the slope of the hair on the fore-arms of 
gorilla, chimpanzee, and gibbon is confirmed. St. George 
Mivart’ mentions one species of gibbon, Hyéobates agilis, where 
the Human Type appears to be exceeded in the wrést-ward 
direction. He says, *‘in AHy/obates agilis all the hair of both 
these limb-segments is directed towards the wrist.” 
This statement is not fully borne out by the examination of 
the specimens of Ay/obates agzlis at South Kensington. 
In addition to these four genera of anthropoid apes, twenty- 
two other species of monkeys were examined as to the slope of 
the hair on the fore-arm, with the following results :— 
A 19. Catarhine or Old World monkeys, as follows :— 
13. Human Type, viz. :— 
Cercocebus a@ethiops— Barbary ape—Japanese ape— 
Cercopithecus campbelli—Cercopithecus ruber—Cerco- 
pithecus diana—Cercopithecus callitrichus—Cercopithe- 
cus lalandii— Cercopithecus  griseo-viridis —Cyno- 
cephalus anubis—Macacus maurus—Arabian baboon 
— Cercopithecus abigulosus. 
(1) Anthropoid Ape Type, viz. :— 
Cercopithecus cephus. 
(5) Partial Human Type inclining to Anthropoid Ape Type, 
viz. :— 
Cynopithecus niger—Cercocebus fuliginosus—Macacus 
cynomologus—Macacus rhesus—Macacus sinicus. 
P 1 Encyclop. Brit., vol. ii. p. 157. 
NO. 1419, VOL. 55 | 
NATURE 
No 
[o3) 
SJ 
ty be 
) Platyrhine or New World monkeys. 
) Human Type, viz. :— 
Cebus fatuellus—Cebus monachus. 
(1) Anthropoid Ape Type, viz. :— 
Ateles geoffroyt. 
Thus of twenty-two lower monkeys, Old World and New 
World, fifteen very closely resemble the human subject in this 
small morphological character, whereas all the anthropoid apes 
(one species of one genus excepted) are markedly different from 
the Human Type. 
Such things ought not to be on the theory of the descent o 
man from the ape. They may not alone support the opposing 
theory, but they ought never to have found their way into 
valuable and popular books, being selected from a great array 
of so-called vestigial characters with a view to supporting the 
above theory. 
(2) There is no reason why the direction of the hair-slope 
on the fore-arm should he studied in its vestigial character, any 
more than that on the ¢Azghk. On the ¢high the Human Type 
is as follows: On the flexor surface the hair slopes in two 
streams to the outer and inner borders respectively, and towards 
the knee. At the upper third and outer side the slope takes a 
direction at right angles to the long axis. On the extensor 
surface the streams of -hair which come from the borders 
coalesce and pass to the back of the knee. The Simian 
Type is oblique, and fo the pelvis, z.e. in the _ favourite 
position of the monkey, when sitting on its haunches, the hair 
falls quite vertically downwards. This statement is based on 
the observation of the four anthropoid apes and twenty-seven 
other lower monkeys, including the twenty-two previously 
specified, thirty-one in all. There were found, out of these 
thirty-one specimens, ten partial exceptions, five’ American 
monkeys, and five lower Old World monkeys, such as baboons, 
Barbary ape, and Japanese ape. In these ten there was a slight 
resemblance to the Human Type, but not a vestige of resem- 
blance in one of the anthropoid apes examined. 
(3) A third region of the human body shows the divergence- 
between the Auman Type of hair-slope and the Szmzan Type 
even more strongly. On the dorsal surface of the trunk in man, 
in the erect posture, the hair slopes in the supra-scapular region 
inwards and at a right angle to the middle line, on approaching 
which it curls downwards. Below the spine of the scapula the 
same direction obtains until about the level of the angle, when 
the hair slopes zfwarvds and inwards to a point over the trans- 
verse processes of the vertebrae, where it becomes horizontal and 
then curls sharply downwards, joins the stream of hair from the - 
opposite side, and passes vertically downwards in the hollow 
over the vertebral spines. This Human Type I have found 
constant in children and adults, and it differs strikingly from 
that of all the apes and monkeys examined, in which, without 
exception, the hair slopes as nearly as possible vertically down- 
wards, when the animal is sitting. 
These remarks, calculated to disparage the value of the direc- 
tion of the hair-slope on the human body as a “‘ vestige” of his 
descent from the ape, may be met in two ways at least. In the 
first place, one may be reminded thatit is not to the few existing 
anthropoid apes, ‘‘ living fossils,” indeed, but to some unknown 
dead fossil apes of the Miocene period that we must look for the 
direct ancestry of man, and that the difference in the hair-slope 
pointed out is consequently unimportant. Perhaps it is. But 
the supposed resemblance was thought worthy of prominence in 
the works of evolutionists, and accordingly the ascertained 
divergence is worthy of not less prominence, 
In the second place, the differing hair-slope on the /ore-arz, 
thigh, and back of man and the anthropoid apes, may be ex- 
plained by the possible influence which the greater weight of the- 
long hair covering the bodies of apes would have in producing 
a generally vertical direction of hair-slope in the sitting posture. 
This posture doubtless is the one in which far the greater part 
of the life of the ape is spent, and a little consideration of the- 
position of an ape in sitting, will show that gravitation would 
tend in the case of long-haired apes to produce the Anthropoid 
Ape Type on the fore-arm, thigh, and back. In the case of man, 
the action of gravity would be unable to influence the slope of 
his short rudimentary hairs. This suggestion of a possible cause 
contributing to the hair-slope on the bodies of apes has, how- 
ever, no bearing on the question of fact. It may be an explana- 
tion, but the facts remain. 
Thus man in these characters resembles much more closely 
the lower Cercopithecidee and Cebide than his supposed 
B( 
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