35 



it and breaks away more or less sharply into the side streams 

 of the neck. In the second type of slope which is a little 

 less common, in this country at any rate, the direction of 

 the corresponding stream is in a markedly opposite line, viz., 

 towards the middle line where it curves inwards more or 

 less sharply, and forms a central stream which passes down 

 the median line. I have attributed this great divergence of 

 hair, so easily understood by examining a number of men or 

 boys with short hair, to the presence or absence in ancestors 

 of the practice of dressing the " back hair," as it is termed 

 by ladies, and have suggested that those who inherit the 

 first type are influenced by the descent through female 

 ancestors, and those who inherit the second through male 

 ancestors. It is obvious that a time was when early man 

 and woman did not dress their hair at all, and that later a 

 time came when some form of drawing together of the back 

 streams of hair would take place, and in this competition as 

 to increasing ornamentation of the person, even in prehistoric 

 times, the woman could give many points to the man. In 

 addition to this factor in all countries, there is the habit in 

 Mongolian countries of putting this portion of hair into 

 queue or pigtail, which China for countless generations and 

 Japan for much fewer generations have practised. Such a 

 general practice as this, amounting to a dressing of the 

 " back hair " in both sexes, would have a very marked effect 

 (if such effects are traceable at all as I suggest) upon the 

 production of the type of slope which tends to the middle 

 line. 



Second, on the dorsal region of the human body and side 

 of the trunk a very curious and unexpected direction is found 

 in the slope of hair. It is necessary to remind you how on 

 the back and sides of the trunk of most animals, even 

 monkeys and apes, the hair slopes very much in the line of 

 the spine from head to tail, this being variable, according tc 

 the posture and shape of the animal. Now on this region 

 man shows a slope which, starting from the side of the 

 thorax and loins passes at first at right angles to the long 

 axis of the body, then passes towards the spine in .an upward 

 slanting way, so that it points nearly towards the neck, and 

 after pursuing this upward slope for a short distance it 

 arrives at the strong muscles which lie along the side of the 

 spine, and here makes a sharp curve downwards and joins 

 the stream of hair in the vertebral furrow or hollow, where the 



