598 THE DESCENT OP MAN. 



naturally somewhat reduced.-' Nevertheless with mankind, the 

 habit of eradicating the beard and the hairs on the body would 

 probably not have arisen until these had already become by some 

 means reduced. 



It is difficult to form any judgment as to how the hair on the 

 head became developed to its present great length in many races. 

 Eschricht=» states that in the human foetus the hair on the face 

 during the fifth month is longer than that on the head; and 

 this indicates that our semi-human progenitors were not fur- 

 nished with long tresses, v/hich must therefore have been a late 

 acquisition. This is likewise indicated by the extraordinary dif- 

 ference in the length of the hair in the different races; in the 

 negro the hair forms a mere curly mat; with us it is of great 

 length, and with the American natives it not rarely reaches to 

 the ground. Some species of Semnopithecus have their heads 

 covered with moderately long hair, and this probably serves as 

 an ornament and was acquired through sexual selection. The 

 same view may perhaps be extended to mankind, for we know 

 that long tresses are now and were formerly much admired, as 

 may be observed in the works of almost every poet; St. Paul 

 says, "if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her;" and we 

 have seen that in North America a chief was elected solely from 

 the length of his hair. 



Color of the Skin. — The best kind of evidence that in man the 

 color of the skin has been modified through sexual selection is 

 scanty; for in most races the sexes do not differ in this respect, 

 and only slightly, as we have seen, in others. We know, how^ever, 

 from the many facts already given that the color of the skin is 

 regarded by the men of all races as a highly important element 

 In their beauty; so that it is a character which would be likely 

 to have been modified through selection, as has occurred in in- 

 numerable instances with the lower animals. It seems at first 

 sight a monstrous supposition that the jet-blackness of the negro 

 should have been gained through sexual selection; but this view 

 is supported by various analogies, and we know that negroes ad- 

 mire their own color. With mammals, when the sexes differ in 

 color, the male is often black or much darker than the female; 

 and it depends merely on the form of inheritance whether this or 

 any other tint is transmitted to both sexes or to one alone. The 

 resemblance to a negro in miniature of Pithecia satanas with his 



2' Mr. Sproat has suggested ('Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,' 

 1868, p. 25) this same view. Some distinguished ethnologists, amongst 

 others M. Gosse of Geneva, believe that artificial modifications of the 

 skull tend to be inherited. 



»8 'Ueber die Richtung,' ibid. ». 40. 



