196 NATURAL SELECTION 1x 
men and women, wore the kangaroo-skin, which was their 
only covering, not from any feeling of modesty, but over the 
shoulders to keep the back dry and warm. A cloth over the 
shoulders was also the national dress of the Maories. The 
Patagonians wear a cloak or mantle over the shoulders, and 
the Fuegians often wear a small piece of skin on the back, 
laced on, and shifted from side to side as the wind blows. 
The Hottentots also wore a somewhat similar skin over the 
back, which they never removed, and in which they were 
buried. Even in the tropics most savages take precautions 
to keep their backs dry. The natives of Timor use the leaf 
of a fan palm, carefully stitched up and folded, which they 
always carry with them, and which, held over the back, forms 
an admirable protection from the rain. Almost all the Malay 
races, as well as the Indians of South America, make great 
palm-leaf hats, four feet of more across, which they use during 
their canoe voyages to protect their bodies from heavy showers 
of rain; and they use smaller hats of the same kind when 
travelling by land. 
We find, then, that so far from there being any reason to 
believe that a hairy covering to the back could have been 
hurtful or even useless to prehistoric man, the habits of 
modern savages indicate exactly the opposite view, as they 
evidently feel the want of it, and are obliged to provide 
substitutes of various kinds. The perfectly erect posture of 
man may be supposed to have something to do with the dis- 
appearance of the hair from his body while it remains on his 
head ; but when walking, exposed to rain and wind, a man 
naturally stoops forwards and thus exposes his back ; and the 
undoubted fact that most savages feel the effects of cold and 
wet most severely in that part of the body, sufficiently demon- 
strates that the hair could not have ceased to grow there merely 
because it was useless, even if it were likely that a character 
so long persistent in the entire order of mammalia could have 
so completely disappeared under the influence of so weak a 
selective power as a diminished usefulness. 
Man’s Naked Skin could not have been produced by Natural Selection 
Tt seems to me, then, to be absolutely certain that natural 
selection could not have produced man’s hairless body by 
