722 THE DESCENT OF MAIf 



did beards"; while on the other islands "they have, as a 

 rule, a dozen straggling hairs for a beard." " 



Throughout the great American continent the men may 

 be said to be beardless; but in almost all the tribes a few 

 short hairs are apt to appear on the face, especially in old 

 age. With the tribes of North America, Catlin estimates 

 that eighteen out of twenty men are completely destitute 

 by nature of a beard; but occasionally there may be seen 

 a man, who has neglected to pluck out the hairs at puberty, 

 with a soft beard an inch or two in length. The Guaranys 

 of Paraguay differ from all the surrounding tribes in having 

 a small beard, and even some hair on the body, but no whis- 

 kers." I am informed by Mr. D. Forbes, who particularly 

 attended to this point, that the Aymaras and Quichuas of 

 the Cordillera are remarkably hairless, yet in old age a few 

 straggling hairs occasionally appear on the chin. The men 

 of these two tribes have very little hair on the various parts 

 of the body where hair grows abundantly in Europeans, and 

 the women have none on the corresponding parts. The 

 hair on the head, however, attains an extraordinary length 

 in both sexes, often reaching almost to the ground; and 

 this is likewise the case with some of the North American 

 tribes. In the amount of hair, and in the general shape of 

 the body, the sexes of the American aborigines do not differ 

 so much from each other as in most other races." This fact 

 is analogous with what occurs with some closely allied mon- 

 keys; thus the sexes of the chimpanzee are not as different 

 as those of the orang or gorilla." 



In the previous chapters we have seen that with mam- 



'* Dr. J. Barnard Davis, On Oceanic Races, in "Anthropolog. Review," 

 April, 1810, pp. 185, 191. 



'» Catlin, "North American Indians," 3d edit., 1842, vol. ii. p. 221. On tlie 

 Guaranys, see Azara, "Voyage dans I'Amerique Merid.," torn, ii., 1809, p. 58; 

 also Rengger, "Saugelhiere von Paraguay," s. 3. 



*•* Prof, and Mrs. Agaasiz ("Journey in Brazil," p. 530) remark that the 

 sexes of the American Indians differ less than those of the negroes and of the 

 nigher races. See, also, Rengger, ibid., p. 3, on the Guaranys. 



^' Riitimeyer, "Die Grenzen der Thierwelt ; eine Betrachtung ' zu Darwin's 

 I-ehre," 1868, 8. 54. 



