1883.] Anthropology. 691 
Race COLOR AND NATURAL SELEcTION.—The fact that Mr. Dar- 
win rejected natural selection as a factor in the production of the 
difference of color in the different races of men, naturally prompts 
a spirit of deference in offering the following views, notwith- 
standing the well-known fact that he courted intelligent criticism 
of his conclusions. 
That color by its harmony with general or special surroundings, 
in many cases not only assists animals in evading discovery and 
destruction, but enables the Carnivora to secure their prey more 
readily, is undisputed; yet sexual selection seems to be regarded 
by Darwin as the principal if not sole cause of the difference of 
race color in man. 
Regarding a problem so involved, comprehending as it doubt- 
less does the joint operation of several factors, possibly including 
some that are unknown, it would be rash to do more than sug- 
gest the probable. 
When we reflect that there is good reason to believe that Africa 
and the Asiatic isles were the birth-place of the human race, and 
that it inherited from an ancestral form the dusky hue of the 
old world primates, and then call to mind the luxuriant foliage of 
the tropics that produces a deep gloom even at noonday, and 
then consider the advantages that the dark hue of the skin would, 
under such circumstances and with the body in a nude state, 
give to its possessor, not only in the successful pursuit of the 
chase and evasion of the Carnivora, but in the savage contests so 
common among primitive and uncivilized peoples; may it not 
fairly be inferred that natural selection played, and is still playing, 
Sexual selection is one cause of the divergence from the origin 
black, natural selection having long been rendered inoperative 
¥ Descent of Man,” Part 1, Chap. vit. 
VOL. xviI.—no. vr. u: 
