LECTURE V. 127 



haired (Ulotriclii), including Negroes, Negrillos, or the black 

 races of the South Sea, the Hottentots, and the Bushmen. 

 The distinction is, perhaps, not sufficiently marked, and inter- 

 mediate forms may be found, such, for instance, as that shown 

 by some South Sea peoples, and called by the French tetes en 

 vatrouille (mop-headed) . 



Be this as it may, this much is certain, that essential cha- 

 racters may be found in the hair. Even the distribution 

 of this ornament differs remarkably. Whilst* in the Negro 

 and the Mongol we find scarcely a trace of hair, excepting on 

 the head, the armpits, and the genitals, while even the down 

 regularly found in the European is wanting, we find a small, 

 nearly extinct tribe of the Kuril islands, — the Ainos, — whose 

 body is so completely covered with shaggy hair, that it gave 

 rise to the Japanese tradition, that the Aino mothers suckled 

 young bears, which gradually became men. The distribution 

 of the hair may thus, perhaps, also form a subordinate cha- 

 racter of the human type. Geoffrey St. Hilaire has justly 

 called attention to the fact, that there is no animal in which 

 the distribution of the hair is so unequal as in man, in whom 

 the greater part of the body is naked, or only covered with 

 down ; whilst the hair on the head, especially in females, 

 reaches a much greater length than in any other animal. An- 

 other circumstance has been observed, that man is more hairy 

 in front than on the back ; whilst in all mammals, in harmony 

 with their posture, the back is more hairy than the belly. The 

 distribution of the hair, as well as its length, should, therefore, 

 be borne in mind. 



It appears, also, that there are differences, not merely in the 

 distribution, but also in the structure of the hair.* The hair 

 of the straight-haired human races is cylindrical ; the section 

 under the microscope appears perfectly circular, and provided 

 with a medullary canal. Not so the hair of the Negro, which 

 is flattened, so that its section exhibits an elongated ellipsis, in 

 the axis of which no medullary canal is seen. It is this lateral 



* See M. Pruner-Bey's most important memoir, " De la Ctevelure comma 

 earacteristique des Races Humaines," recently published in the Memoires de 

 la Societi d'Anthropologie de Paris, vol. ii, p. 1, transl. in Anthrop. Rev., No. iv. 



