grees of fineness and color, beautifully 
arranged in order, and all pointing in 
such directions as will add to the 
beauty or comfort or terrifying aspect 
of the animal. 
Not only are our hairs numbered, 
but each particular hair is furnished 
with a little individual muscle of its 
own running from the base of the folli- 
cle to the inner surface of the true 
skin, so that when the proper occasion 
arises for erection of that individual 
hair the muscle contracts apparently 
of its own accord, and up stands the 
hair along with its fellows, ready to 
frighten the animal that dares to ap- 
proach in hostile attitude the owner of 
the precious coat. Similar muscles 
erect the feathers -of the owl, and the 
gorgeous tail of the peacock dazzles 
us in the sunlight moved in like man- 
ner, while to those more powerful der- 
mal appendages, the claws, talons, and 
nails, are attached more powerful mus- 
cles still, with proper nerve connections 
for the most effective use of the wea- 
pons nature has formed out of the soft 
outer skin, which is usually so mild and 
yielding as to have earned the name of 
scarf skin. 
This outer skin is formed of cells, 
flat on the surface, but near the true 
skin where they originate, rounded and 
in many cases even tall and apparently 
reaching out towards the surface. It 
gives the color to the person by means 
of pigment cells which lie in its midst. 
The black man is dark because of 
the abundance of pigment cells in his 
scarf skin. The albino is light because 
of their absence. The colors of hair 
and feathers are due to these cells in 
their receptacles, but white and iri- 
descent feathers are doubtless so partly 
because of their absence and partly be- 
cause of hollow spaces which catch and 
reflect or refract the light. 
This arrangement of cells into scarf 
skin has much to do with the healing 
of weunds. In cases of old sores that 
refuse to heal, or where the skin has 
been extensively destroyed, the doc- 
tors have found that good, healthy skin 
may be grafted upon the sores in such a 
manner as to invigorate and perfect 
the process of healing. Small particles 
of fresh skin taken from a healthy sub- 
ject or from some other part of the 
patient's body are placed upon the sore, 
the portions used being about the size 
of a small pinhead, and new life seems 
transplanted in the deadened part. 
The skin of a black man grafted upon 
that of a white man shows afterwards 
no trace of its origin, but becomes the 
same shade as that which it adjoins. 
Several animals change their tints to 
correspond with their surroundings. 
This subject has been exaggerated by 
observers of an imaginative turn of mind, 
but the fact remains that there is a de- 
cided change in the coloring of certain 
crabs and shrimps as well as in soles, 
chameleons, tree-frogs, and two kinds 
of horned toads wherever they are found 
against any well-defined shade or color, 
Some have maintained that man takes 
on a tint somewhat resembling the soil 
of the territory where he abides in an 
uncivilized condition, but Beddard con- 
siders Schweinfurth's statement that 
the Bongos have a reddish-brown skin 
similar to the soil of their country, and 
the Dinhas, their neighbors, are as 
black as their alluvial ground, merely as 
an account of what is purely accidental 
in the instances given. 
The coloring of most fish so that they 
cannot readily be seen by looking down 
into the water because of the blackness 
of their backs, is highly protective. And 
the fact is more apparent when we note 
that an enemy looking at the same fish 
from below is hindered in discovery be- 
cause the white under parts of the fish 
are hard to distinguish against the light 
of the sky above. Nearly all the pro- 
tective color markings of animals are 
modifications of the scarf skin. 
The true skin is of great interest both 
because it is the seat of what is called 
the sense of touch and because it ; s 
used so extensively in the arts in the 
form of leather. 
Nerves of sensation expand over the 
whole surface of the body, and their 
minute branchings in the skin make 
contact with other substances highly 
discernible. But the sense of touch is 
peculiarly developed in few of the lower 
animals, and we may ^almost regard it 
as an attribute of man alone. Our 
ability to turn our fingers about things 
and move our hands over their surface 
139 
