6o4 T he Descent of Man. P^bt III. 



it is of great length, and with the American natives it not rarely 

 teauhes to the grunnd. Some species of Semnopitheous have 

 their heads covered vi^ith 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 wc 

 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, X is a glory to her ;'' and we 

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

 the length of his hair. 



Colour of the Skin. — The hest kind of evidence that in man the 

 colour of the skin has been modified through sexual selection is 

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

 and only slightly, as we have seen, in others. We know, however, 

 from the many facts already given that the colour 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 hkely 

 to have been modified through selection, as has occurred in 

 innumerable 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 

 admire their own colour. With mammals, when the sexes 

 differ in colour, 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 miiiature of Pithecia 

 saiimas with his jet black skin, white rolling eyeballs, and hair 

 parted on the top of the head, is almost ludicrous. 



The colour of the face differs much more widely in the various 

 kinds of monkeys than it does in the races of man ; and we have 

 some reason to believe that the red, blue, orange, almost white 

 and black tints of their skin, even when common to both sexes, 

 as well as the bright colours of their fur, and the ornamental 

 tufts about the head, have all been acquired through sexual 

 selection. As the order of development during growth, generally 

 indicates the order m which the characters of a species havo 

 been developed and modified during previous generations ; and 

 as the newly-born infants of the various races of man do not 

 differ nearly as much in colour as do the adults, although their 

 bodies are as completely destitute of hair, we have some slight 

 evidence that the tints of the different races were acquired at a 

 period subsequent to the removal of the hair, which nmst havo 

 occurred at a very early period in the history of man. 



