378 
SEXUAL selection: man. 
Part II. 
“ 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 Icing 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 . 20 
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. A curious case has been recorded, by Pi nel, of an 
idiot, degraded to the level of a brute, whose back, 
loins, and shoulders were covered with hair, one or two 
inches in length. Some other analogous cases are like- 
wise known. It does not appear that a cold climate 
has been influential in leading to this kind of rever- 
sion ; excepting perhaps with the negroes, who have 
been reared during several generations, in the United 
States , 21 and possibly with the Ainos, who inhabit the 
20 1 The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ 
vol. ii. 1868, p. 327. 
21 ‘ Investigations into Military and Anthropological Statistics of 
American Soldiers,’ by B. A. Gould, 1869; p. 568 Observations 
were carefully made on the pilosity of 212!) black and coloured soldiers, 
whilst they were bathing; and by looking to the published table, “ it 
“ is manifest at a glance that there is hut little, if any, difference 
“ between the white and the black races in tliis 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 mulattops were included in the above 
enumeration ; and tin's is an unfortunate circumstance, as in accordance 
with the principle, the truth of which I liavo elsewhere proved, crossed 
races would be eminently liable to revert to the primordial hairy 
character of their early ape-like progenitors. 
