88 THE DESCENT OF MAN 



from the hairy covering of the superciliary ridges in some 

 baboons. 



The fine wool-like hair, or so-called lanugo, with wbich 

 the human foetus during the sixth month is thickly covered, 

 offers a more curious case. It is first developed, during the 

 fifth month, on tbe eyebrows and face, and especially round 

 the mouth, where it is much longer than that on the head. 

 A mustache of this kind was observed by Bschricht" on a 

 female foetus; but this is not so surprising a circumstance 

 as it may at first appear, for the two sexes generally resem- 

 ble each other in all external characters during an early 

 period of growth. The direction and arrangement of the 

 hairs on all parts of the foetal body are the same as in 

 the adult, but are subject to much variability. The whole 

 surface, including even the forehead and ears, is thus thickly 

 clothed; but it is a significant fact that the palms of the 

 hands and the soles of the feet are quite naked, like the in- 

 ferior surfaces of all four extremities in most of the lower 

 animals. As this can hardly be an accidental coincidence, 

 the woolly covering of the foetus probably represents the 

 first permanent coat of hair in those mammals which are 

 born hairy. Three or four cases have been recorded of 

 persons born with their whole bodies and faces thickly 

 covered with fine, long hairs; and this strange condition 

 is strongly inherited, and is correlated with an abnormal 

 condition of the teeth.*' Prof. Alex. Brandt informs me 

 that he has compared the hair from the face of a man thus 

 characterized, aged thirty-five, with the lanugo of a foetus, 

 and finds it quite similar in texture; therefore, as he re- 

 marks, the case may be attributed to an arrest of develop- 

 ment in the hair, together with its continued growth. Many 

 delicate children, as I have been assured by a surgeon to 

 a hospital for children, have their backs covered by rather 



■•» Eschrieht, ibid., s. 40, 41. 



^' See my "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," vol. ii. 

 p. 321. Prof. Alex. Brandt has recently sent me an additional case of a father 

 and son, bom in Russia, with these peculiarities. I have received drawings 

 of both from Paris. 



