MAN— ABSENCE OF HAIR. 59 D 



ctiapter, have we any evidence that this can be due to the 

 direct action or climate, or that it Is the result of correlated de- 

 velopment. 



The absence of hair on the body is to a certain extent a sec- 

 ondary sexual character; for in all parts of the world women 

 are less hairy than men. Therefore we may reasonably suspect 

 that this character has been gained through sexual selection. 

 "We know that the faces of several species of monkeys, and large 

 surfaces at the posterior end of the body of other species, have 

 been denuded of hair; and this we may safely attribute to sexual 

 selection, for these surfaces are not only vividly colored, but some- 

 times, as with the male mandrill and female rhesus, much more 

 vividly in the one sex than in the other, especially during the 

 breeding-season. I am informed by Mr. Bartlett that, as these 

 animals gradually reach maturity, the naked surfaces grow larger 

 compared with the size of their bodies. The hair, however, ap- 

 pears to have been removed, not for the sake of nudity, but that 

 the color of the skin may be more fully displayed. So again with 

 many birds, it appears as if the head and neck had been divested 

 of feathers through sexual selection, to exhibit the brightly-col- 

 ored skin. 



As the body in woman is less hairy than in man, and as this 

 character is common to all races, we may conclude that it was 

 our female semi-human ancestors who were first divested of hair, 

 and that this occurred at an extremely remote period before the 

 several races had diverged from a common stock. Whilst our 

 female ancestors were gradually acquiring this new character of 

 nudity, they must have transmitted it almost equally to their 

 offspring of both sexes whilst young; so that its transmission, 

 as with the ornaments of many mammals and birds, has not been 

 limited either by sex or age. There is nothing surprising in a 

 partial loss of hair having been esteemed as an ornament by our 

 ape-like progenitors, for we have seen that innumerable strange 

 characters have been thus esteemed by animals of all kinds, and 

 have consequently been gained through sexual selection. Nor 

 is it surprising that a slightly injurious character should have 

 been thus acquired; for we know that this is the case with the 

 plumes of certain birds, and with the horns of certain stags. 



The females of some of the anthropoid apes, as stated in a 

 former chapter, are somewhat less hairy on the under surface than 

 the males; and here we have what might have afforded a com- 

 mencement for the process of denudation. With respect to the 

 completion of the process through sexual selection, it is well to 

 bear in mind the New Zealand proverb, "There is no woman for 



"the possibility of its selection through its superior beauty or the 

 "health attaching to superior cleanliness." 



