SEXUAL SELECTION IN BELATION TO MAN 773 



body of other species, have been denuded of hair ; and this 

 we may safely attribute to sexual selection, for these sur- 

 faces are not only vividly colored, but sometimes, as with 

 the male mandrill and female rhesus, much more vividly in 

 the one sex than in the other, especiall;^ during the breed- 

 ing 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, appears 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 -colored 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 re- 

 mote period before the several races had diverged from a 

 common stock. While our female ancestors were gradually 

 acquiring this new character of nudity, they must have 

 transmitted it almost equally to their offspring of both 

 sexes while young; so that its transmission, as with the 

 ornaments of many mammals and birds, has not been lim- 

 ited 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 innumer- 

 able strange characters have been thus esteemed by animals 

 of all kinds, and have consequently been gained through 

 sexual selection. iN'or is it surprising that a slightly injuri- 

 ous 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 

 a£Eorded a commencement for the process of denudation. 

 With respect to the completion of the process through 



