378 SEXUAL selection: man. PartII. 
of denudation. With respect to the completion of the 
process through sexual selection, it is well to bear in 
mind the New Zealand 'proverb, there is no woman 
for a hairy man.” All who have seen photographs of 
the Siamese hairy family will admit how ludicrously 
hideous is the opposite extreme of excessive hairiness. 
Hence the king of Siam had to bribe a man to marry 
the first hairy woman in the family, who transmitted 
this character to her young offspring of both sexes.^^ 
Some races are much more hairy than others, especi- 
ally on the male side ; but it must not be assumed that 
the more hairy races, for instance Europeans, have re- 
tained a primordial condition more completely than 
have the naked races, such as the Kalmucks or Ame- 
ricans. It is a more probable view that the hairiness 
of the former is due to partial reversion, for characters 
which have long been inherited are always apt to re- 
turn. It does not appear that a cold climate has been 
influential in leading to this kind of reversion ; ex- 
cepting jierhaps with the negroes, who have been reared 
during several generations, in the United States,^^ and 
possibly with the Ainos, who inhabit the northern 
20 t Variation of Animals and Plants nnder Domestication/ 
Yol. ii. 1868, p. 327. 
‘ Investigations into Military and Anthropological Statistics of 
American Soldiers/ by B. A. Gould, 1869 ; p. 568 : — Observations 
were carefully made on the pilosity of 2129 black and coloured soldiers, 
whilst they were bathing ; and by looking to the ]3ublished table, it 
‘‘ is manifest at a glance that there is but little, if any, dilference 
between the white and the black races in this respect.” It is, how- 
ever, certain that negroes in their native and much hotter land of 
Africa, have remarkably smooth bodies. It should be particularly 
observed, that pure blacks and mulattoes were included in the above 
enumeration ; and this is an unfortunate circumstance, as in accordance 
with the principle, the truth of which I have elsewhere proved, crossed 
laces would be eminently liable to reVert to the primordial hairy 
character of their early ape-like progenitors. 
