SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAMMALS—continued.
Voice—Remarkable sexual peculiarities in seals—Odour—Development of the
hair—Colour of the hair and skin—Anomalous case of the female being
more ornamented than the male—Colour and ornaments due to sexual
selection—Colour acquired for the sake of protection—Colour, though
common to both sexes, often due to sexual selection—On the
disappearance of spots and stripes in adult quadrupeds—On the colours
and ornaments of the Quadrumana—Summary.
Quadrupeds use their voices for various purposes, as a signal of
danger, as a call from one member of a troop to another, or from the
mother to her lost offspring, or from the latter for protection to
their mother; but such uses need not here be considered. We are
concerned only with the difference between the voices of the sexes, for
instance between that of the lion and lioness, or of the bull and cow.
Almost all male animals use their voices much more during the
rutting-season than at any other time; and some, as the giraffe and
porcupine (1. Owen, ‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 585.), are
said to be completely mute excepting at this season. As the throats
(i.e. the larynx and thyroid bodies (2. Ibid. p. 595.)) of stags
periodically become enlarged at the beginning of the breeding-season,
it might be thought that their powerful voices must be somehow of high
importance to them; but this is very doubtful. From information given
to me by two experienced observers, Mr. McNeill and Sir P. Egerton, it
seems that young stags under three years old do not roar or bellow; and
that the old ones begin bellowing at the commencement of the
breeding-season, at first only occasionally and moderately, whilst they
restlessly wander about in search of the females. Their battles are
prefaced by loud and prolonged bellowing, but during the actual
conflict they are silent. Animals of all kinds which habitually use
their voices utter various noises under any strong emotion, as when
enraged and preparing to fight; but this may merely be the result of
nervous excitement, which leads to the spasmodic contraction of almost
all the muscles of the body, as when a man grinds his teeth and
clenches his fists in rage or agony. No doubt stags challenge each
other to mortal combat by bellowing; but those with the more powerful
voices, unless at the same time the stronger, better-armed, and more
courageous, would not gain any advantage over their rivals.
It is possible that the roaring of the lion may be of some service to
him by striking terror into his adversary; for when enraged he likewise
erects his mane and thus instinctively tries to make himself appear as
terrible as possible. But it can hardly be supposed that the bellowing
of the stag, even if it be of service to him in this way, can have been
important enough to have led to the periodical enlargement of the
throat. Some writers suggest that the bellowing serves as a call to the
female; but the experienced observers above quoted inform me that
female deer do not search for the male, though the males search eagerly
for the females, as indeed might be expected from what we know of the
habits of other male quadrupeds. The voice of the female, on the other
hand, quickly brings to her one or more stags (3. See, for instance,
Major W. Ross King (‘The Sportsman in Canada,’ 1866, pp. 53, 131) on
the habits of the moose and wild reindeer.), as is well known to the
hunters who in wild countries imitate her cry. If we could believe that
the male had the power to excite or allure the female by his voice, the
periodical enlargement of his vocal organs would be intelligible on the
principle of sexual selection, together with inheritance limited to the
same sex and season; but we have no evidence in favour of this view. As
the case stands, the loud voice of the stag during the breeding-season
does not seem to be of any special service to him, either during his
courtship or battles, or in any other way. But may we not believe that
the frequent use of the voice, under the strong excitement of love,
jealousy, and rage, continued during many generations, may at last have
produced an inherited effect on the vocal organs of the stag, as well
as of other male animals? This appears to me, in our present state of
knowledge, the most probable view.
The voice of the adult male gorilla is tremendous, and he is furnished
with a laryngeal sack, as is the adult male orang. (4. Owen ‘Anatomy of
Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 600.) The gibbons rank among the noisiest of
monkeys, and the Sumatra species (Hylobates syndactylus) is also
furnished with an air sack; but Mr. Blyth, who has had opportunities
for observation, does not believe that the male is noisier than the
female. Hence, these latter monkeys probably use their voices as a
mutual call; and this is certainly the case with some quadrupeds, for
instance the beaver. (5. Mr. Green, in ‘Journal of Linnean Society,’
vol. x. ‘Zoology,’ 1869, note 362.) Another gibbon, the H. agilis, is
remarkable, from having the power of giving a complete and correct
octave of musical notes (6. C.L. Martin, ‘General Introduction to the
Natural History of Mamm. Animals,’ 1841, p. 431.), which we may
reasonably suspect serves as a sexual charm; but I shall have to recur
to this subject in the next chapter. The vocal organs of the American
Mycetes caraya are one-third larger in the male than in the female, and
are wonderfully powerful. These monkeys in warm weather make the
forests resound at morning and evening with their overwhelming voices.
The males begin the dreadful concert, and often continue it during many
hours, the females sometimes joining in with their less powerful
voices. An excellent observer, Rengger (7. ‘Naturgeschichte der
Säugethiere von Paraguay,’ 1830, ss. 15, 21.), could not perceive that
they were excited to begin by any special cause; he thinks that, like
many birds, they delight in their own music, and try to excel each
other. Whether most of the foregoing monkeys have acquired their
powerful voices in order to beat their rivals and charm the females—or
whether the vocal organs have been strengthened and enlarged through
the inherited effects of long-continued use without any particular good
being thus gained—I will not pretend to say; but the former view, at
least in the case of the Hylobates agilis, seems the most probable.
I may here mention two very curious sexual peculiarities occurring in
seals, because they have been supposed by some writers to affect the
voice. The nose of the male sea-elephant (Macrorhinus proboscideus)
becomes greatly elongated during the breeding-season, and can then be
erected. In this state it is sometimes a foot in length. The female is
not thus provided at any period of life. The male makes a wild, hoarse,
gurgling noise, which is audible at a great distance and is believed to
be strengthened by the proboscis; the voice of the female being
different. Lesson compares the erection of the proboscis, with the
swelling of the wattles of male gallinaceous birds whilst courting the
females. In another allied kind of seal, the bladder-nose (Cystophora
cristata), the head is covered by a great hood or bladder. This is
supported by the septum of the nose, which is produced far backwards
and rises into an internal crest seven inches in height. The hood is
clothed with short hair, and is muscular; can be inflated until it more
than equals the whole head in size! The males when rutting, fight
furiously on the ice, and their roaring “is said to be sometimes so
loud as to be heard four miles off.” When attacked they likewise roar
or bellow; and whenever irritated the bladder is inflated and quivers.
Some naturalists believe that the voice is thus strengthened, but
various other uses have been assigned to this extraordinary structure.
Mr. R. Brown thinks that it serves as a protection against accidents of
all kinds; but this is not probable, for, as I am assured by Mr. Lamont
who killed 600 of these animals, the hood is rudimentary in the
females, and it is not developed in the males during youth. (8. On the
sea-elephant, see an article by Lesson, in ‘Dict. Class. Hist. Nat.’
tom. xiii. p. 418. For the Cystophora, or Stemmatopus, see Dr. Dekay,
‘Annals of Lyceum of Nat. Hist.’ New York, vol. i. 1824, p. 94. Pennant
has also collected information from the sealers on this animal. The
fullest account is given by Mr. Brown, in ‘Proc. Zoolog. Soc.’ 1868, p.
435.)
ODOUR.
With some animals, as with the notorious skunk of America, the
overwhelming odour which they emit appears to serve exclusively as a
defence. With shrew-mice (Sorex) both sexes possess abdominal
scent-glands, and there can be little doubt, from the rejection of
their bodies by birds and beasts of prey, that the odour is protective;
nevertheless, the glands become enlarged in the males during the
breeding-season. In many other quadrupeds the glands are of the same
size in both sexes (9. As with the castoreum of the beaver, see Mr.
L.H. Morgan’s most interesting work, ‘The American Beaver,’ 1868, p.
300. Pallas (‘Spic. Zoolog.’ fasc. viii. 1779, p. 23) has well
discussed the odoriferous glands of mammals. Owen (‘Anat. of
Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 634) also gives an account of these glands,
including those of the elephant, and (p. 763) those of shrew-mice. On
bats, Mr. Dobson in ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society’ 1873, p.
241.), but their uses are not known. In other species the glands are
confined to the males, or are more developed than in the females; and
they almost always become more active during the rutting-season. At
this period the glands on the sides of the face of the male elephant
enlarge, and emit a secretion having a strong musky odour. The males,
and rarely the females, of many kinds of bats have glands and
protrudable sacks situated in various parts; and it is believed that
these are odoriferous.
The rank effluvium of the male goat is well known, and that of certain
male deer is wonderfully strong and persistent. On the banks of the
Plata I perceived the air tainted with the odour of the male Cervus
campestris, at half a mile to leeward of a herd; and a silk
handkerchief, in which I carried home a skin, though often used and
washed, retained, when first unfolded, traces of the odour for one year
and seven months. This animal does not emit its strong odour until more
than a year old, and if castrated whilst young never emits it. (10.
Rengger, ‘Naturgeschichte der Säugethiere von Paraguay,’ 1830, s. 355.
This observer also gives some curious particulars in regard to the
odour.) Besides the general odour, permeating the whole body of certain
ruminants (for instance, Bos moschatus) in the breeding-season, many
deer, antelopes, sheep, and goats possess odoriferous glands in various
situations, more especially on their faces. The so-called tear-sacks,
or suborbital pits, come under this head. These glands secrete a
semi-fluid fetid matter which is sometimes so copious as to stain the
whole face, as I have myself seen in an antelope. They are “usually
larger in the male than in the female, and their development is checked
by castration.” (11. Owen, ‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 632.
See also Dr. Murie’s observations on those glands in the ‘Proc. Zoolog.
Soc.’ 1870, p. 340. Desmarest, ‘On the Antilope subgutturosa,
‘Mammalogie,’ 1820, p. 455.) According to Desmarest they are altogether
absent in the female of Antilope subgutturosa. Hence, there can be no
doubt that they stand in close relation with the reproductive
functions. They are also sometimes present, and sometimes absent, in
nearly allied forms. In the adult male musk-deer (Moschus moschiferus),
a naked space round the tail is bedewed with an odoriferous fluid,
whilst in the adult female, and in the male until two years old, this
space is covered with hair and is not odoriferous. The proper musk-sack
of this deer is from its position necessarily confined to the male, and
forms an additional scent-organ. It is a singular fact that the matter
secreted by this latter gland, does not, according to Pallas, change in
consistence, or increase in quantity, during the rutting-season;
nevertheless this naturalist admits that its presence is in some way
connected with the act of reproduction. He gives, however, only a
conjectural and unsatisfactory explanation of its use. (12. Pallas,
‘Spicilegia Zoolog.’ fasc. xiii. 1799, p. 24; Desmoulins, ‘Dict. Class.
d’Hist. Nat.’ tom. iii. p. 586.)
In most cases, when only the male emits a strong odour during the
breeding-season, it probably serves to excite or allure the female. We
must not judge on this head by our own taste, for it is well known that
rats are enticed by certain essential oils, and cats by valerian,
substances far from agreeable to us; and that dogs, though they will
not eat carrion, sniff and roll on it. From the reasons given when
discussing the voice of the stag, we may reject the idea that the odour
serves to bring the females from a distance to the males. Active and
long-continued use cannot here have come into play, as in the case of
the vocal organs. The odour emitted must be of considerable importance
to the male, inasmuch as large and complex glands, furnished with
muscles for everting the sack, and for closing or opening the orifice,
have in some cases been developed. The development of these organs is
intelligible through sexual selection, if the most odoriferous males
are the most successful in winning the females, and in leaving
offspring to inherit their gradually perfected glands and odours.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE HAIR.
We have seen that male quadrupeds often have the hair on their necks
and shoulders much more developed than the females; and many additional
instances could be given. This sometimes serves as a defence to the
male during his battles; but whether the hair in most cases has been
specially developed for this purpose, is very doubtful. We may feel
almost certain that this is not the case, when only a thin and narrow
crest runs along the back; for a crest of this kind would afford
scarcely any protection, and the ridge of the back is not a place
likely to be injured; nevertheless such crests are sometimes confined
to the males, or are much more developed in them than in the females.
Two antelopes, the Tragelaphus scriptus (13. Dr. Gray, ‘Gleanings from
the Menagerie at Knowsley,’ pl. 28.) (Fig. 70) and Portax picta may be
given as instances. When stags, and the males of the wild goat, are
enraged or terrified, these crests stand erect (14. Judge Caton on the
Wapiti, ‘Transact. Ottawa Acad. Nat. Sciences,’ 1868, pp. 36, 40;
Blyth, ‘Land and Water,’ on Capra aegagrus 1867, p. 37.); but it cannot
be supposed that they have been developed merely for the sake of
exciting fear in their enemies. One of the above-named antelopes, the
Portax picta, has a large well-defined brush of black hair on the
throat, and this is much larger in the male than in the female. In the
Ammotragus tragelaphus of North Africa, a member of the sheep-family,
the fore-legs are almost concealed by an extraordinary growth of hair,
which depends from the neck and upper halves of the legs; but Mr.
Bartlett does not believe that this mantle is of the least use to the
male, in whom it is much more developed than in the female.
[Fig. 68. Pithecia satanas, male (from Brehm).]
Male quadrupeds of many kinds differ from the females in having more
hair, or hair of a different character, on certain parts of their
faces. Thus the bull alone has curled hair on the forehead. (15.
Hunter’s ‘Essays and Observations,’ edited by Owen, 1861. vol. i. p.
236.) In three closely-allied sub-genera of the goat family, only the
males possess beards, sometimes of large size; in two other sub-genera
both sexes have a beard, but it disappears in some of the domestic
breeds of the common goat; and neither sex of the Hemitragus has a
beard. In the ibex the beard is not developed during the summer, and is
so small at other times that it may be called rudimentary. (16. See Dr.
Gray’s ‘Catalogue of Mammalia in the British Museum,’ part iii. 1852,
p. 144.) With some monkeys the beard is confined to the male, as in the
orang; or is much larger in the male than in the female, as in the
Mycetes caraya and Pithecia satanas (Fig. 68). So it is with the
whiskers of some species of Macacus (17. Rengger, ‘Säugethiere,’ etc.,
s. 14; Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 86.), and, as we have seen, with the
manes of some species of baboons. But with most kinds of monkeys the
various tufts of hair about the face and head are alike in both sexes.
The males of various members of the ox family (Bovidae), and of certain
antelopes, are furnished with a dewlap, or great fold of skin on the
neck, which is much less developed in the female.
Now, what must we conclude with respect to such sexual differences as
these? No one will pretend that the beards of certain male goats, or
the dewlaps of the bull, or the crests of hair along the backs of
certain male antelopes, are of any use to them in their ordinary
habits. It is possible that the immense beard of the male Pithecia, and
the large beard of the male orang, may protect their throats when
fighting; for the keepers in the Zoological Gardens inform me that many
monkeys attack each other by the throat; but it is not probable that
the beard has been developed for a distinct purpose from that served by
the whiskers, moustache, and other tufts of hair on the face; and no
one will suppose that these are useful as a protection. Must we
attribute all these appendages of hair or skin to mere purposeless
variability in the male? It cannot be denied that this is possible; for
in many domesticated quadrupeds, certain characters, apparently not
derived through reversion from any wild parent form, are confined to
the males, or are more developed in them than in the females—for
instance, the hump on the male zebu-cattle of India, the tail of
fat-tailed rams, the arched outline of the forehead in the males of
several breeds of sheep, and lastly, the mane, the long hairs on the
hind legs, and the dewlap of the male of the Berbura goat. (18. See the
chapters on these several animals in vol. i. of my ‘Variation of
Animals under Domestication;’ also vol. ii. p. 73; also chap. xx. on
the practice of selection by semi-civilised people. For the Berbura
goat, see Dr. Gray, ‘Catalogue,’ ibid. p. 157.) The mane, which occurs
only in the rams of an African breed of sheep, is a true secondary
sexual character, for, as I hear from Mr. Winwood Reade, it is not
developed if the animal be castrated. Although we ought to be extremely
cautious, as shewn in my work on ‘Variation under Domestication,’ in
concluding that any character, even with animals kept by semi-civilised
people, has not been subjected to selection by man, and thus augmented,
yet in the cases just specified this is improbable; more especially as
the characters are confined to the males, or are more strongly
developed in them than in the females. If it were positively known that
the above African ram is a descendant of the same primitive stock as
the other breeds of sheep, and if the Berbura male-goat with his mane,
dewlap, etc., is descended from the same stock as other goats, then,
assuming that selection has not been applied to these characters, they
must be due to simple variability, together with sexually-limited
inheritance.
Hence it appears reasonable to extend this same view to all analogous
cases with animals in a state of nature. Nevertheless I cannot persuade
myself that it generally holds good, as in the case of the
extraordinary development of hair on the throat and fore-legs of the
male Ammotragus, or in that of the immense beard of the male Pithecia.
Such study as I have been able to give to nature makes me believe that
parts or organs which are highly developed, were acquired at some
period for a special purpose. With those antelopes in which the adult
male is more strongly-coloured than the female, and with those monkeys
in which the hair on the face is elegantly arranged and coloured in a
diversified manner, it seems probable that the crests and tufts of hair
were gained as ornaments; and this I know is the opinion of some
naturalists. If this be correct, there can be little doubt that they
were gained or at least modified through sexual selection; but how far
the same view may be extended to other mammals is doubtful.
COLOUR OF THE HAIR AND OF THE NAKED SKIN.
I will first give briefly all the cases known to me of male quadrupeds
differing in colour from the females. With Marsupials, as I am informed
by Mr. Gould, the sexes rarely differ in this respect; but the great
red kangaroo offers a striking exception, “delicate blue being the
prevailing tint in those parts of the female which in the male are
red.” (19. Osphranter rufus, Gould, ‘Mammals of Australia,’ 1863, vol.
ii. On the Didelphis, Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 256.) In the
Didelphis opossum of Cayenne the female is said to be a little more red
than the male. Of the Rodents, Dr. Gray remarks: “African squirrels,
especially those found in the tropical regions, have the fur much
brighter and more vivid at some seasons of the year than at others, and
the fur of the male is generally brighter than that of the female.”
(20. ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ Nov. 1867, p. 325. On
the Mus minutus, Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 304.) Dr. Gray informs me
that he specified the African squirrels, because, from their unusually
bright colours, they best exhibit this difference. The female of the
Mus minutus of Russia is of a paler and dirtier tint than the male. In
a large number of bats the fur of the male is lighter than in the
female. (21. J.A. Allen, in ‘Bulletin of Mus. Comp. Zoolog. of
Cambridge, United States,’ 1869, p. 207. Mr. Dobson on sexual
characters in the Chiroptera, ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’
1873, p. 241. Dr. Gray on Sloths, ibid. 1871, p. 436.) Mr. Dobson also
remarks, with respect to these animals: “Differences, depending partly
or entirely on the possession by the male of fur of a much more
brilliant hue, or distinguished by different markings or by the greater
length of certain portions, are met only, to any appreciable extent, in
the frugivorous bats in which the sense of sight is well developed.”
This last remark deserves attention, as bearing on the question whether
bright colours are serviceable to male animals from being ornamental.
In one genus of sloths, it is now established, as Dr. Gray states,
“that the males are ornamented differently from the females—that is to
say, that they have a patch of soft short hair between the shoulders,
which is generally of a more or less orange colour, and in one species
pure white. The females, on the contrary, are destitute of this mark.”
The terrestrial Carnivora and Insectivora rarely exhibit sexual
differences of any kind, including colour. The ocelot (Felis pardalis),
however, is exceptional, for the colours of the female, compared with
those of the male, are “moins apparentes, le fauve, étant plus terne,
le blanc moins pur, les raies ayant moins de largeur et les taches
moins de diamètre.” (22. Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ 1820, p. 220. On
Felis mitis, Rengger, ibid. s. 194.) The sexes of the allied Felis
mitis also differ, but in a less degree; the general hues of the female
being rather paler than in the male, with the spots less black. The
marine Carnivora or seals, on the other hand, sometimes differ
considerably in colour, and they present, as we have already seen,
other remarkable sexual differences. Thus the male of the Otaria
nigrescens of the southern hemisphere is of a rich brown shade above;
whilst the female, who acquires her adult tints earlier in life than
the male, is dark-grey above, the young of both sexes being of a deep
chocolate colour. The male of the northern Phoca groenlandica is tawny
grey, with a curious saddle-shaped dark mark on the back; the female is
much smaller, and has a very different appearance, being “dull white or
yellowish straw-colour, with a tawny hue on the back”; the young at
first are pure white, and can “hardly be distinguished among the icy
hummocks and snow, their colour thus acting as a protection.” (23. Dr.
Murie on the Otaria, ‘Proceedings Zoological Society,’ 1869, p. 108.
Mr. R. Brown on the P. groenlandica, ibid. 1868, p. 417. See also on
the colours of seals, Desmarest, ibid. pp. 243, 249.)
With Ruminants sexual differences of colour occur more commonly than in
any other order. A difference of this kind is general in the
Strepsicerene antelopes; thus the male nilghau (Portax picta) is
bluish-grey and much darker than the female, with the square white
patch on the throat, the white marks on the fetlocks, and the black
spots on the ears all much more distinct. We have seen that in this
species the crests and tufts of hair are likewise more developed in the
male than in the hornless female. I am informed by Mr. Blyth that the
male, without shedding his hair, periodically becomes darker during the
breeding-season. Young males cannot be distinguished from young females
until about twelve months old; and if the male is emasculated before
this period, he never, according to the same authority, changes colour.
The importance of this latter fact, as evidence that the colouring of
the Portax is of sexual origin, becomes obvious, when we hear (24.
Judge Caton, in ‘Transactions of the Ottawa Academy of Natural
Sciences,’ 1868, p. 4.) that neither the red summer-coat nor the blue
winter-coat of the Virginian deer is at all affected by emasculation.
With most or all of the highly-ornamented species of Tragelaphus the
males are darker than the hornless females, and their crests of hair
are more fully developed. In the male of that magnificent antelope, the
Derbyan eland, the body is redder, the whole neck much blacker, and the
white band which separates these colours broader than in the female. In
the Cape eland, also, the male is slightly darker than the female. (25.
Dr. Gray, ‘Cat. of Mamm. in Brit. Mus.’ part iii. 1852, pp. 134-142;
also Dr. Gray, ‘Gleanings from the Menagerie of Knowsley,’ in which
there is a splendid drawing of the Oreas derbianus: see the text on
Tragelaphus. For the Cape eland (Oreas canna), see Andrew Smith,
‘Zoology of S. Africa,’ pl. 41 and 42. There are also many of these
Antelopes in the Zoological Gardens.)
In the Indian black-buck (A. bezoartica), which belongs to another
tribe of antelopes, the male is very dark, almost black; whilst the
hornless female is fawn-coloured. We meet in this species, as Mr. Blyth
informs me, with an exactly similar series of facts, as in the Portax
picta, namely, in the male periodically changing colour during the
breeding-season, in the effects of emasculation on this change, and in
the young of both sexes being indistinguishable from each other. In the
Antilope niger the male is black, the female, as well as the young of
both sexes, being brown; in A. sing-sing the male is much brighter
coloured than the hornless female, and his chest and belly are blacker;
in the male A. caama, the marks and lines which occur on various parts
of the body are black, instead of brown as in the female; in the
brindled gnu (A. gorgon) “the colours of the male are nearly the same
as those of the female, only deeper and of a brighter hue.” (26. On the
Ant. niger, see ‘Proc. Zool. Soc.’ 1850, p. 133. With respect to an
allied species, in which there is an equal sexual difference in colour,
see Sir S. Baker, ‘The Albert Nyanza,’ 1866, vol. ii. p. 627. For the
A. sing-sing, Gray, ‘Cat. B. Mus.’ p. 100. Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p.
468, on the A. caama. Andrew Smith, ‘Zoology of S. Africa,’ on the
Gnu.) Other analogous cases could be added.
The Banteng bull (Bos sondaicus) of the Malayan Archipelago is almost
black, with white legs and buttocks; the cow is of a bright dun, as are
the young males until about the age of three years, when they rapidly
change colour. The emasculated bull reverts to the colour of the
female. The female Kemas goat is paler, and both it and the female
Capra aegagrus are said to be more uniformly tinted than their males.
Deer rarely present any sexual differences in colour. Judge Caton,
however, informs me that in the males of the wapiti deer (Cervus
canadensis) the neck, belly, and legs are much darker than in the
female; but during the winter the darker tints gradually fade away and
disappear. I may here mention that Judge Caton has in his park three
races of the Virginian deer, which differ slightly in colour, but the
differences are almost exclusively confined to the blue winter or
breeding-coat; so that this case may be compared with those given in a
previous chapter of closely-allied or representative species of birds,
which differ from each other only in their breeding plumage. (27.
‘Ottawa Academy of Sciences,’ May 21, 1868, pp. 3, 5.) The females of
Cervus paludosus of S. America, as well as the young of both sexes, do
not possess the black stripes on the nose and the blackish-brown line
on the breast, which are characteristic of the adult males. (28. S.
Muller, on the Banteng, ‘Zoog. Indischen Archipel.’ 1839-1844, tab. 35;
see also Raffles, as quoted by Mr. Blyth, in ‘Land and Water,’ 1867, p.
476. On goats, Dr. Gray, ‘Catalogue of the British Museum,’ p. 146;
Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 482. On the Cervus paludosus, Rengger,
ibid. s. 345.) Lastly, as I am informed by Mr. Blyth, the mature male
of the beautifully coloured and spotted axis deer is considerably
darker than the female: and this hue the castrated male never acquires.
The last Order which we need consider is that of the Primates. The male
of the Lemur macaco is generally coal-black, whilst the female is
brown. (29. Sclater, ‘Proc. Zool. Soc.’ 1866, p. i. The same fact has
also been fully ascertained by MM. Pollen and van Dam. See, also, Dr.
Gray in ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ May 1871, p. 340.) Of
the Quadrumana of the New World, the females and young of Mycetes
caraya are greyish-yellow and like each other; in the second year the
young male becomes reddish-brown; in the third, black, excepting the
stomach, which, however, becomes quite black in the fourth or fifth
year. There is also a strongly-marked difference in colour between the
sexes of Mycetes seniculus and Cebus capucinus; the young of the
former, and I believe of the latter species, resembling the females.
With Pithecia leucocephala the young likewise resemble the females,
which are brownish-black above and light rusty-red beneath, the adult
males being black. The ruff of hair round the face of Ateles marginatus
is tinted yellow in the male and white in the female. Turning to the
Old World, the males of Hylobates hoolock are always black, with the
exception of a white band over the brows; the females vary from
whity-brown to a dark tint mixed with black, but are never wholly
black. (30. On Mycetes, Rengger, ibid. s. 14; and Brehm, ‘Thierleben,’
B. i. s. 96, 107. On Ateles Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 75. On
Hylobates, Blyth, ‘Land and Water,’ 1867, p. 135. On the Semnopithecus,
S. Muller, ‘Zoog. Indischen Archipel.’ tab. x.) In the beautiful
Cercopithecus diana, the head of the adult male is of an intense black,
whilst that of the female is dark grey; in the former the fur between
the thighs is of an elegant fawn-colour, in the latter it is paler. In
the beautiful and curious moustache monkey (Cercopithecus cephus) the
only difference between the sexes is that the tail of the male is
chestnut and that of the female grey; but Mr. Bartlett informs me that
all the hues become more pronounced in the male when adult, whilst in
the female they remain as they were during youth. According to the
coloured figures given by Solomon Muller, the male of Semnopithecus
chrysomelas is nearly black, the female being pale brown. In the
Cercopithecus cynosurus and griseo-viridis one part of the body, which
is confined to the male sex, is of the most brilliant blue or green,
and contrasts strikingly with the naked skin on the hinder part of the
body, which is vivid red.
[Fig. 69. Head of male Mandrill (from Gervais, ‘Hist. Nat. des
Mammifères’).]
Lastly, in the baboon family, the adult male of Cynocephalus hamadryas
differs from the female not only by his immense mane, but slightly in
the colour of the hair and of the naked callosities. In the drill (C.
leucophaeus) the females and young are much paler-coloured, with less
green, than the adult males. No other member in the whole class of
mammals is coloured in so extraordinary a manner as the adult male
mandrill (C. mormon). The face at this age becomes of a fine blue, with
the ridge and tip of the nose of the most brilliant red. According to
some authors, the face is also marked with whitish stripes, and is
shaded in parts with black, but the colours appear to be variable. On
the forehead there is a crest of hair, and on the chin a yellow beard.
“Toutes les parties supérieures de leurs cuisses et le grand espace nu
de leurs fesses sont également colorés du rouge le plus vif, avec un
mélange de bleu qui ne manque reellement pas d’élégance.” (31. Gervais,
‘Hist. Nat. des Mammifères,’ 1854, p. 103. Figures are given of the
skull of the male. Also Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 70. Geoffroy
St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ‘Hist. Nat. des Mammifères,’ 1824, tom. i.)
When the animal is excited all the naked parts become much more vividly
tinted. Several authors have used the strongest expressions in
describing these resplendent colours, which they compare with those of
the most brilliant birds. Another remarkable peculiarity is that when
the great canine teeth are fully developed, immense protuberances of
bone are formed on each cheek, which are deeply furrowed
longitudinally, and the naked skin over them is brilliantly-coloured,
as just-described. (Fig. 69.) In the adult females and in the young of
both sexes these protuberances are scarcely perceptible; and the naked
parts are much less bright coloured, the face being almost black,
tinged with blue. In the adult female, however, the nose at certain
regular intervals of time becomes tinted with red.
In all the cases hitherto given the male is more strongly or brighter
coloured than the female, and differs from the young of both sexes. But
as with some few birds it is the female which is brighter coloured than
the male, so with the Rhesus monkey (Macacus rhesus), the female has a
large surface of naked skin round the tail, of a brilliant carmine red,
which, as I was assured by the keepers in the Zoological Gardens,
periodically becomes even yet more vivid, and her face also is pale
red. On the other hand, in the adult male and in the young of both
sexes (as I saw in the Gardens), neither the naked skin at the
posterior end of the body, nor the face, shew a trace of red. It
appears, however, from some published accounts, that the male does
occasionally, or during certain seasons, exhibit some traces of the
red. Although he is thus less ornamented than the female, yet in the
larger size of his body, larger canine teeth, more developed whiskers,
more prominent superciliary ridges, he follows the common rule of the
male excelling the female.
I have now given all the cases known to me of a difference in colour
between the sexes of mammals. Some of these may be the result of
variations confined to one sex and transmitted to the same sex, without
any good being gained, and therefore without the aid of selection. We
have instances of this with our domesticated animals, as in the males
of certain cats being rusty-red, whilst the females are tortoise-shell
coloured. Analogous cases occur in nature: Mr. Bartlett has seen many
black varieties of the jaguar, leopard, vulpine phalanger, and wombat;
and he is certain that all, or nearly all these animals, were males. On
the other hand, with wolves, foxes, and apparently American squirrels,
both sexes are occasionally born black. Hence it is quite possible that
with some mammals a difference in colour between the sexes, especially
when this is congenital, may simply be the result, without the aid of
selection, of the occurrence of one or more variations, which from the
first were sexually limited in their transmission. Nevertheless it is
improbable that the diversified, vivid, and contrasted colours of
certain quadrupeds, for instance, of the above monkeys and antelopes,
can thus be accounted for. We should bear in mind that these colours do
not appear in the male at birth, but only at or near maturity; and that
unlike ordinary variations, they are lost if the male be emasculated.
It is on the whole probable that the strongly-marked colours and other
ornamental characters of male quadrupeds are beneficial to them in
their rivalry with other males, and have consequently been acquired
through sexual selection. This view is strengthened by the differences
in colour between the sexes occurring almost exclusively, as may be
collected from the previous details, in those groups and sub-groups of
mammals which present other and strongly-marked secondary sexual
characters; these being likewise due to sexual selection.
Quadrupeds manifestly take notice of colour. Sir S. Baker repeatedly
observed that the African elephant and rhinoceros attacked white or
grey horses with special fury. I have elsewhere shewn (32. The
‘Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ 1868, vol. ii.
pp. 102, 103.) that half-wild horses apparently prefer to pair with
those of the same colour, and that herds of fallow-deer of different
colours, though living together, have long kept distinct. It is a more
significant fact that a female zebra would not admit the addresses of a
male ass until he was painted so as to resemble a zebra, and then, as
John Hunter remarks, “she received him very readily. In this curious
fact, we have instinct excited by mere colour, which had so strong an
effect as to get the better of everything else. But the male did not
require this, the female being an animal somewhat similar to himself,
was sufficient to rouse him.” (33. ‘Essays and Observations,’ by J.
Hunter, edited by Owen, 1861, vol. i. p. 194.)
In an earlier chapter we have seen that the mental powers of the higher
animals do not differ in kind, though greatly in degree, from the
corresponding powers of man, especially of the lower and barbarous
races; and it would appear that even their taste for the beautiful is
not widely different from that of the Quadrumana. As the negro of
Africa raises the flesh on his face into parallel ridges “or
cicatrices, high above the natural surface, which unsightly deformities
are considered great personal attractions” (34. Sir S. Baker, ‘The Nile
Tributaries of Abyssinia,’ 1867.);—as negroes and savages in many parts
of the world paint their faces with red, blue, white, or black bars,—so
the male mandrill of Africa appears to have acquired his
deeply-furrowed and gaudily-coloured face from having been thus
rendered attractive to the female. No doubt it is to us a most
grotesque notion that the posterior end of the body should be coloured
for the sake of ornament even more brilliantly than the face; but this
is not more strange than that the tails of many birds should be
especially decorated.
With mammals we do not at present possess any evidence that the males
take pains to display their charms before the female; and the elaborate
manner in which this is performed by male birds and other animals is
the strongest argument in favour of the belief that the females admire,
or are excited by, the ornaments and colours displayed before them.
There is, however, a striking parallelism between mammals and birds in
all their secondary sexual characters, namely in their weapons for
fighting with rival males, in their ornamental appendages, and in their
colours. In both classes, when the male differs from the female, the
young of both sexes almost always resemble each other, and in a large
majority of cases resemble the adult female. In both classes the male
assumes the characters proper to his sex shortly before the age of
reproduction; and if emasculated at an early period, loses them. In
both classes the change of colour is sometimes seasonal, and the tints
of the naked parts sometimes become more vivid during the act of
courtship. In both classes the male is almost always more vividly or
strongly coloured than the female, and is ornamented with larger crests
of hair or feathers, or other such appendages. In a few exceptional
cases the female in both classes is more highly ornamented than the
male. With many mammals, and at least in the case of one bird, the male
is more odoriferous than the female. In both classes the voice of the
male is more powerful than that of the female. Considering this
parallelism, there can be little doubt that the same cause, whatever it
may be, has acted on mammals and birds; and the result, as far as
ornamental characters are concerned, may be attributed, as it appears
to me, to the long-continued preference of the individuals of one sex
for certain individuals of the opposite sex, combined with their
success in leaving a larger number of offspring to inherit their
superior attractions.
EQUAL TRANSMISSION OF ORNAMENTAL CHARACTERS TO BOTH SEXES.
With many birds, ornaments, which analogy leads us to believe were
primarily acquired by the males, have been transmitted equally, or
almost equally, to both sexes; and we may now enquire how far this view
applies to mammals. With a considerable number of species, especially
of the smaller kinds, both sexes have been coloured, independently of
sexual selection, for the sake of protection; but not, as far as I can
judge, in so many cases, nor in so striking a manner, as in most of the
lower classes. Audubon remarks that he often mistook the musk-rat (35.
Fiber zibethicus, Audubon and Bachman, ‘The Quadrupeds of North
America,’ 1846, p. 109.), whilst sitting on the banks of a muddy
stream, for a clod of earth, so complete was the resemblance. The hare
on her form is a familiar instance of concealment through colour; yet
this principle partly fails in a closely-allied species, the rabbit,
for when running to its burrow, it is made conspicuous to the
sportsman, and no doubt to all beasts of prey, by its upturned white
tail. No one doubts that the quadrupeds inhabiting snow-clad regions
have been rendered white to protect them from their enemies, or to
favour their stealing on their prey. In regions where snow never lies
for long, a white coat would be injurious; consequently, species of
this colour are extremely rare in the hotter parts of the world. It
deserves notice that many quadrupeds inhabiting moderately cold
regions, although they do not assume a white winter dress, become paler
during this season; and this apparently is the direct result of the
conditions to which they have long been exposed. Pallas (36. ‘Novae
species Quadrupedum e Glirium ordine,’ 1778, p. 7. What I have called
the roe is the Capreolus sibiricus subecaudatus of Pallas.) states that
in Siberia a change of this nature occurs with the wolf, two species of
Mustela, the domestic horse, the Equus hemionus, the domestic cow, two
species of antelopes, the musk-deer, the roe, elk, and reindeer. The
roe, for instance, has a red summer and a greyish-white winter coat;
and the latter may perhaps serve as a protection to the animal whilst
wandering through the leafless thickets, sprinkled with snow and
hoar-frost. If the above-named animals were gradually to extend their
range into regions perpetually covered with snow, their pale
winter-coats would probably be rendered through natural selection,
whiter and whiter, until they became as white as snow.
Mr. Reeks has given me a curious instance of an animal profiting by
being peculiarly coloured. He raised from fifty to sixty white and
brown piebald rabbits in a large walled orchard; and he had at the same
time some similarly coloured cats in his house. Such cats, as I have
often noticed, are very conspicuous during day; but as they used to lie
in watch during the dusk at the mouths of the burrows, the rabbits
apparently did not distinguish them from their parti-coloured brethren.
The result was that, within eighteen months, every one of these
parti-coloured rabbits was destroyed; and there was evidence that this
was effected by the cats. Colour seems to be advantageous to another
animal, the skunk, in a manner of which we have had many instances in
other classes. No animal will voluntarily attack one of these creatures
on account of the dreadful odour which it emits when irritated; but
during the dusk it would not easily be recognised and might be attacked
by a beast of prey. Hence it is, as Mr. Belt believes (37. ‘The
Naturalist in Nicaragua,’ p. 249.), that the skunk is provided with a
great white bushy tail, which serves as a conspicuous warning.
[Fig. 70. Tragelaphus scriptus, male (from the Knowsley Menagerie).
Fig. 71. Damalis pygarga, male (from the Knowsley Menagerie).]
Although we must admit that many quadrupeds have received their present
tints either as a protection, or as an aid in procuring prey, yet with
a host of species, the colours are far too conspicuous and too
singularly arranged to allow us to suppose that they serve for these
purposes. We may take as an illustration certain antelopes; when we see
the square white patch on the throat, the white marks on the fetlocks,
and the round black spots on the ears, all more distinct in the male of
the Portax picta, than in the female;—when we see that the colours are
more vivid, that the narrow white lines on the flank and the broad
white bar on the shoulder are more distinct in the male Oreas derbyanus
than in the female;—when we see a similar difference between the sexes
of the curiously-ornamented Tragelaphus scriptus (Fig. 70),—we cannot
believe that differences of this kind are of any service to either sex
in their daily habits of life. It seems a much more probable conclusion
that the various marks were first acquired by the males and their
colours intensified through sexual selection, and then partially
transferred to the females. If this view be admitted, there can be
little doubt that the equally singular colours and marks of many other
antelopes, though common to both sexes, have been gained and
transmitted in a like manner. Both sexes, for instance, of the koodoo
(Strepsiceros kudu) (Fig. 64) have narrow white vertical lines on their
hind flanks, and an elegant angular white mark on their foreheads. Both
sexes in the genus Damalis are very oddly coloured; in D. pygarga the
back and neck are purplish-red, shading on the flanks into black; and
these colours are abruptly separated from the white belly and from a
large white space on the buttocks; the head is still more oddly
coloured, a large oblong white mask, narrowly-edged with black, covers
the face up to the eyes (Fig. 71); there are three white stripes on the
forehead, and the ears are marked with white. The fawns of this species
are of a uniform pale yellowish-brown. In Damalis albifrons the
colouring of the head differs from that in the last species in a single
white stripe replacing the three stripes, and in the ears being almost
wholly white. (38. See the fine plates in A. Smith’s ‘Zoology of South
Africa,’ and Dr. Gray’s ‘Gleanings from the Menagerie of Knowsley.’)
After having studied to the best of my ability the sexual differences
of animals belonging to all classes, I cannot avoid the conclusion that
the curiously-arranged colours of many antelopes, though common to both
sexes, are the result of sexual selection primarily applied to the
male.
The same conclusion may perhaps be extended to the tiger, one of the
most beautiful animals in the world, the sexes of which cannot be
distinguished by colour, even by the dealers in wild beasts. Mr.
Wallace believes (39. ‘Westminster Review,’ July 1, 1867, p. 5.) that
the striped coat of the tiger “so assimilates with the vertical stems
of the bamboo, as to assist greatly in concealing him from his
approaching prey.” But this view does not appear to me satisfactory. We
have some slight evidence that his beauty may be due to sexual
selection, for in two species of Felis the analogous marks and colours
are rather brighter in the male than in the female. The zebra is
conspicuously striped, and stripes cannot afford any protection in the
open plains of South Africa. Burchell (40. ‘Travels in South Africa,’
1824, vol. ii. p. 315.) in describing a herd says, “their sleek ribs
glistened in the sun, and the brightness and regularity of their
striped coats presented a picture of extraordinary beauty, in which
probably they are not surpassed by any other quadruped.” But as
throughout the whole group of the Equidae the sexes are identical in
colour, we have here no evidence of sexual selection. Nevertheless he
who attributes the white and dark vertical stripes on the flanks of
various antelopes to this process, will probably extend the same view
to the Royal Tiger and beautiful Zebra.
We have seen in a former chapter that when young animals belonging to
any class follow nearly the same habits of life as their parents, and
yet are coloured in a different manner, it may be inferred that they
have retained the colouring of some ancient and extinct progenitor. In
the family of pigs, and in the tapirs, the young are marked with
longitudinal stripes, and thus differ from all the existing adult
species in these two groups. With many kinds of deer the young are
marked with elegant white spots, of which their parents exhibit not a
trace. A graduated series can be followed from the axis deer, both
sexes of which at all ages and during all seasons are beautifully
spotted (the male being rather more strongly coloured than the female),
to species in which neither the old nor the young are spotted. I will
specify some of the steps in this series. The Mantchurian deer (Cervus
mantchuricus) is spotted during the whole year, but, as I have seen in
the Zoological Gardens, the spots are much plainer during the summer,
when the general colour of the coat is lighter, than during the winter,
when the general colour is darker and the horns are fully developed. In
the hog-deer (Hyelaphus porcinus) the spots are extremely conspicuous
during the summer when the coat is reddish-brown, but quite disappear
during the winter when the coat is brown. (41. Dr. Gray, ‘Gleanings
from the Menagerie of Knowsley,’ p. 64. Mr. Blyth, in speaking (‘Land
and Water,’ 1869, p. 42) of the hog-deer of Ceylon, says it is more
brightly spotted with white than the common hog-deer, at the season
when it renews its horns.) In both these species the young are spotted.
In the Virginian deer the young are likewise spotted, and about five
per cent. of the adult animals living in Judge Caton’s park, as I am
informed by him, temporarily exhibit at the period when the red summer
coat is being replaced by the bluish winter coat, a row of spots on
each flank, which are always the same in number, though very variable
in distinctness. From this condition there is but a very small step to
the complete absence of spots in the adults at all seasons; and,
lastly, to their absence at all ages and seasons, as occurs with
certain species. From the existence of this perfect series, and more
especially from the fawns of so many species being spotted, we may
conclude that the now living members of the deer family are the
descendants of some ancient species which, like the axis deer, was
spotted at all ages and seasons. A still more ancient progenitor
probably somewhat resembled the Hyomoschus aquaticus—for this animal is
spotted, and the hornless males have large exserted canine teeth, of
which some few true deer still retain rudiments. Hyomoschus, also,
offers one of those interesting cases of a form linking together two
groups, for it is intermediate in certain osteological characters
between the pachyderms and ruminants, which were formerly thought to be
quite distinct. (42. Falconer and Cautley, ‘Proc. Geolog. Soc.’ 1843;
and Falconer’s ‘Pal. Memoirs,’ vol. i. p. 196.)
A curious difficulty here arises. If we admit that coloured spots and
stripes were first acquired as ornaments, how comes it that so many
existing deer, the descendants of an aboriginally spotted animal, and
all the species of pigs and tapirs, the descendants of an aboriginally
striped animal, have lost in their adult state their former ornaments?
I cannot satisfactorily answer this question. We may feel almost sure
that the spots and stripes disappeared at or near maturity in the
progenitors of our existing species, so that they were still retained
by the young; and, owing to the law of inheritance at corresponding
ages, were transmitted to the young of all succeeding generations. It
may have been a great advantage to the lion and puma, from the open
nature of their usual haunts, to have lost their stripes, and to have
been thus rendered less conspicuous to their prey; and if the
successive variations, by which this end was gained, occurred rather
late in life, the young would have retained their stripes, as is now
the case. As to deer, pigs, and tapirs, Fritz Müller has suggested to
me that these animals, by the removal of their spots or stripes through
natural selection, would have been less easily seen by their enemies;
and that they would have especially required this protection, as soon
as the carnivora increased in size and number during the tertiary
periods. This may be the true explanation, but it is rather strange
that the young should not have been thus protected, and still more so
that the adults of some species should have retained their spots,
either partially or completely, during part of the year. We know that,
when the domestic ass varies and becomes reddish-brown, grey, or black,
the stripes on the shoulders and even on the spine frequently
disappear, though we cannot explain the cause. Very few horses, except
dun-coloured kinds, have stripes on any part of their bodies, yet we
have good reason to believe that the aboriginal horse was striped on
the legs and spine, and probably on the shoulders. (43. The ‘Variation
of Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ 1868, vol. i. pp. 61-64.)
Hence the disappearance of the spots and stripes in our adult existing
deer, pigs, and tapirs, may be due to a change in the general colour of
their coats; but whether this change was effected through sexual or
natural selection, or was due to the direct action of the conditions of
life, or to some other unknown cause, it is impossible to decide. An
observation made by Mr. Sclater well illustrates our ignorance of the
laws which regulate the appearance and disappearance of stripes; the
species of Asinus which inhabit the Asiatic continent are destitute of
stripes, not having even the cross shoulder-stripe, whilst those which
inhabit Africa are conspicuously striped, with the partial exception of
A. taeniopus, which has only the cross shoulder-stripe and generally
some faint bars on the legs; and this species inhabits the almost
intermediate region of Upper Egypt and Abyssinia. (44. ‘Proc. Zool.
Soc.’ 1862, p. 164. See, also, Dr. Hartmann, ‘Ann. d. Landw.’ Bd.
xliii. s. 222.)
QUADRUMANA.
[Fig. 72. Head of Semnopithecus rubicundus. This and the following
figures (from Prof. Gervais) are given to shew the odd arrangement and
development of the hair on the head.
Fig. 73. Head of Semnopithecus comatus.
Fig. 74. Head of Cebus capucinus.
Fig. 75. Head of Ateles marginatus.
Fig. 76. Head of Cebus vellerosus.]
Before we conclude, it will be well to add a few remarks on the
ornaments of monkeys. In most of the species the sexes resemble each
other in colour, but in some, as we have seen, the males differ from
the females, especially in the colour of the naked parts of the skin,
in the development of the beard, whiskers, and mane. Many species are
coloured either in so extraordinary or so beautiful a manner, and are
furnished with such curious and elegant crests of hair, that we can
hardly avoid looking at these characters as having been gained for the
sake of ornament. The accompanying figures (Figs. 72 to 76) serve to
shew the arrangement of the hair on the face and head in several
species. It is scarcely conceivable that these crests of hair, and the
strongly contrasted colours of the fur and skin, can be the result of
mere variability without the aid of selection; and it is inconceivable
that they can be of use in any ordinary way to these animals. If so,
they have probably been gained through sexual selection, though
transmitted equally, or almost equally, to both sexes. With many of the
Quadrumana, we have additional evidence of the action of sexual
selection in the greater size and strength of the males, and in the
greater development of their canine teeth, in comparison with the
females.
[Fig. 77. Cercopithecus petaurista (from Brehm).]
A few instances will suffice of the strange manner in which both sexes
of some species are coloured, and of the beauty of others. The face of
the Cercopithecus petaurista (Fig. 77) is black, the whiskers and beard
being white, with a defined, round, white spot on the nose, covered
with short white hair, which gives to the animal an almost ludicrous
aspect. The Semnopithecus frontatus likewise has a blackish face with a
long black beard, and a large naked spot on the forehead of a
bluish-white colour. The face of Macacus lasiotus is dirty
flesh-coloured, with a defined red spot on each cheek. The appearance
of Cercocebus aethiops is grotesque, with its black face, white
whiskers and collar, chestnut head, and a large naked white spot over
each eyelid. In very many species, the beard, whiskers, and crests of
hair round the face are of a different colour from the rest of the
head, and when different, are always of a lighter tint (45. I observed
this fact in the Zoological Gardens; and many cases may be seen in the
coloured plates in Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ‘Histoire Nat.
des Mammifères,’ tom. i. 1824.), being often pure white, sometimes
bright yellow, or reddish. The whole face of the South American
Brachyurus calvus is of a “glowing scarlet hue”; but this colour does
not appear until the animal is nearly mature. (46. Bates, ‘The
Naturalist on the Amazons,’ 1863, vol. ii. p. 310.) The naked skin of
the face differs wonderfully in colour in the various species. It is
often brown or flesh-colour, with parts perfectly white, and often as
black as that of the most sooty negro. In the Brachyurus the scarlet
tint is brighter than that of the most blushing Caucasian damsel. It is
sometimes more distinctly orange than in any Mongolian, and in several
species it is blue, passing into violet or grey. In all the species
known to Mr. Bartlett, in which the adults of both sexes have
strongly-coloured faces, the colours are dull or absent during early
youth. This likewise holds good with the mandrill and Rhesus, in which
the face and the posterior parts of the body are brilliantly coloured
in one sex alone. In these latter cases we have reason to believe that
the colours were acquired through sexual selection; and we are
naturally led to extend the same view to the foregoing species, though
both sexes when adult have their faces coloured in the same manner.
[Fig. 78. Cercopithecus diana (from Brehm).]
Although many kinds of monkeys are far from beautiful according to our
taste, other species are universally admired for their elegant
appearance and bright colours. The Semnopithecus nemaeus, though
peculiarly coloured, is described as extremely pretty; the
orange-tinted face is surrounded by long whiskers of glossy whiteness,
with a line of chestnut-red over the eyebrows; the fur on the back is
of a delicate grey, with a square patch on the loins, the tail and the
fore-arms being of a pure white; a gorget of chestnut surmounts the
chest; the thighs are black, with the legs chestnut-red. I will mention
only two other monkeys for their beauty; and I have selected these as
presenting slight sexual differences in colour, which renders it in
some degree probable that both sexes owe their elegant appearance to
sexual selection. In the moustache-monkey (Cercopithecus cephus) the
general colour of the fur is mottled-greenish with the throat white; in
the male the end of the tail is chestnut, but the face is the most
ornamented part, the skin being chiefly bluish-grey, shading into a
blackish tint beneath the eyes, with the upper lip of a delicate blue,
clothed on the lower edge with a thin black moustache; the whiskers are
orange-coloured, with the upper part black, forming a band which
extends backwards to the ears, the latter being clothed with whitish
hairs. In the Zoological Society’s Gardens I have often overheard
visitors admiring the beauty of another monkey, deservedly called
Cercopithecus diana (Fig. 78); the general colour of the fur is grey;
the chest and inner surface of the forelegs are white; a large
triangular defined space on the hinder part of the back is rich
chestnut; in the male the inner sides of the thighs and the abdomen are
delicate fawn-coloured, and the top of the head is black; the face and
ears are intensely black, contrasting finely with a white transverse
crest over the eyebrows and a long white peaked beard, of which the
basal portion is black. (47. I have seen most of the above monkeys in
the Zoological Society’s Gardens. The description of the Semnopithecus
nemaeus is taken from Mr. W.C. Martin’s ‘Natural History of Mammalia,’
1841, p. 460; see also pp. 475, 523.)
In these and many other monkeys, the beauty and singular arrangement of
their colours, and still more the diversified and elegant arrangement
of the crests and tufts of hair on their heads, force the conviction on
my mind that these characters have been acquired through sexual
selection exclusively as ornaments.
A SUMMARY.
The law of battle for the possession of the female appears to prevail
throughout the whole great class of mammals. Most naturalists will
admit that the greater size, strength, courage, and pugnacity of the
male, his special weapons of offence, as well as his special means of
defence, have been acquired or modified through that form of selection
which I have called sexual. This does not depend on any superiority in
the general struggle for life, but on certain individuals of one sex,
generally the male, being successful in conquering other males, and
leaving a larger number of offspring to inherit their superiority than
do the less successful males.
There is another and more peaceful kind of contest, in which the males
endeavour to excite or allure the females by various charms. This is
probably carried on in some cases by the powerful odours emitted by the
males during the breeding-season; the odoriferous glands having been
acquired through sexual selection. Whether the same view can be
extended to the voice is doubtful, for the vocal organs of the males
must have been strengthened by use during maturity, under the powerful
excitements of love, jealousy or rage, and will consequently have been
transmitted to the same sex. Various crests, tufts, and mantles of
hair, which are either confined to the male, or are more developed in
this sex than in the female, seem in most cases to be merely
ornamental, though they sometimes serve as a defence against rival
males. There is even reason to suspect that the branching horns of
stags, and the elegant horns of certain antelopes, though properly
serving as weapons of offence or defence, have been partly modified for
ornament.
When the male differs in colour from the female, he generally exhibits
darker and more strongly-contrasted tints. We do not in this class meet
with the splendid red, blue, yellow, and green tints, so common with
male birds and many other animals. The naked parts, however, of certain
Quadrumana must be excepted; for such parts, often oddly situated, are
brilliantly coloured in some species. The colours of the male in other
cases may be due to simple variation, without the aid of selection. But
when the colours are diversified and strongly pronounced, when they are
not developed until near maturity, and when they are lost after
emasculation, we can hardly avoid the conclusion that they have been
acquired through sexual selection for the sake of ornament, and have
been transmitted exclusively, or almost exclusively, to the same sex.
When both sexes are coloured in the same manner, and the colours are
conspicuous or curiously arranged, without being of the least apparent
use as a protection, and especially when they are associated with
various other ornamental appendages, we are led by analogy to the same
conclusion, namely, that they have been acquired through sexual
selection, although transmitted to both sexes. That conspicuous and
diversified colours, whether confined to the males or common to both
sexes, are as a general rule associated in the same groups and
sub-groups with other secondary sexual characters serving for war or
for ornament, will be found to hold good, if we look back to the
various cases given in this and the last chapter.
The law of the equal transmission of characters to both sexes, as far
as colour and other ornaments are concerned, has prevailed far more
extensively with mammals than with birds; but weapons, such as horns
and tusks, have often been transmitted either exclusively or much more
perfectly to the males than to the females. This is surprising, for, as
the males generally use their weapons for defence against enemies of
all kinds, their weapons would have been of service to the females. As
far as we can see, their absence in this sex can be accounted for only
by the form of inheritance which has prevailed. Finally, with
quadrupeds the contest between the individuals of the same sex, whether
peaceful or bloody, has, with the rarest exceptions, been confined to
the males; so that the latter have been modified through sexual
selection, far more commonly than the females, either for fighting with
each other or for alluring the opposite sex.
PART III.
SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN, AND CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER XIX.
SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN.
Differences between man and woman—Causes of such differences and of
certain characters common to both sexes—Law of battle—Differences in
mental powers, and voice—On the influence of beauty in determining the
marriages of mankind—Attention paid by savages to ornaments—Their ideas
of beauty in woman—The tendency to exaggerate each natural peculiarity.
With mankind the differences between the sexes are greater than in most
of the Quadrumana, but not so great as in some, for instance, the
mandrill. Man on an average is considerably taller, heavier, and
stronger than woman, with squarer shoulders and more plainly-pronounced
muscles. Owing to the relation which exists between muscular
development and the projection of the brows (1. Schaaffhausen,
translation in ‘Anthropological Review,’ Oct. 1868, pp. 419, 420,
427.), the superciliary ridge is generally more marked in man than in
woman. His body, and especially his face, is more hairy, and his voice
has a different and more powerful tone. In certain races the women are
said to differ slightly in tint from the men. For instance,
Schweinfurth, in speaking of a negress belonging to the Monbuttoos, who
inhabit the interior of Africa a few degrees north of the equator,
says, “Like all her race, she had a skin several shades lighter than
her husband’s, being something of the colour of half-roasted coffee.”
(2. ‘The Heart of Africa,’ English transl. 1873, vol i. p. 544.) As the
women labour in the fields and are quite unclothed, it is not likely
that they differ in colour from the men owing to less exposure to the
weather. European women are perhaps the brighter coloured of the two
sexes, as may be seen when both have been equally exposed.
Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a
more inventive genius. His brain is absolutely larger, but whether or
not proportionately to his larger body, has not, I believe, been fully
ascertained. In woman the face is rounder; the jaws and the base of the
skull smaller; the outlines of the body rounder, in parts more
prominent; and her pelvis is broader than in man (3. Ecker,
translation, in ‘Anthropological Review,’ Oct. 1868, pp. 351-356. The
comparison of the form of the skull in men and women has been followed
out with much care by Welcker.); but this latter character may perhaps
be considered rather as a primary than a secondary sexual character.
She comes to maturity at an earlier age than man.
As with animals of all classes, so with man, the distinctive characters
of the male sex are not fully developed until he is nearly mature; and
if emasculated they never appear. The beard, for instance, is a
secondary
sexual character, and male children are beardless, though at an early
age they have abundant hair on the head. It is probably due to the
rather late appearance in life of the successive variations whereby man
has acquired his masculine characters, that they are transmitted to the
male sex alone. Male and female children resemble each other closely,
like the young of so many other animals in which the adult sexes differ
widely; they likewise resemble the mature female much more closely than
the mature male. The female, however, ultimately assumes certain
distinctive characters, and in the formation of her skull, is said to
be intermediate between the child and the man. (4. Ecker and Welcker,
ibid. pp. 352, 355; Vogt, ‘Lectures on Man,’ Eng. translat. p. 81.)
Again, as the young of closely allied though distinct species do not
differ nearly so much from each other as do the adults, so it is with
the children of the different races of man. Some have even maintained
that race-differences cannot be detected in the infantile skull. (5.
Schaaffhausen, ‘Anthropolog. Review,’ ibid. p. 429.) In regard to
colour, the new-born negro child is reddish nut-brown, which soon
becomes slaty-grey; the black colour being fully developed within a
year in the Soudan, but not until three years in Egypt. The eyes of the
negro are at first blue, and the hair chestnut-brown rather than black,
being curled only at the ends. The children of the Australians
immediately after birth are yellowish-brown, and become dark at a later
age. Those of the Guaranys of Paraguay are whitish-yellow, but they
acquire in the course of a few weeks the yellowish-brown tint of their
parents. Similar observations have been made in other parts of America.
(6. Pruner-Bey, on negro infants as quoted by Vogt, ‘Lectures on Man,’
Eng. translat. 1864, p. 189: for further facts on negro infants, as
quoted from Winterbottom and Camper, see Lawrence, ‘Lectures on
Physiology,’ etc. 1822, p. 451. For the infants of the Guaranys, see
Rengger, ‘Säugethiere,’ etc. s. 3. See also Godron, ‘De l’Espèce,’ tom.
ii. 1859, p. 253. For the Australians, Waitz, ‘Introduction to
Anthropology,’ Eng. translat. 1863, p. 99.)
I have specified the foregoing differences between the male and female
sex in mankind, because they are curiously like those of the
Quadrumana. With these animals the female is mature at an earlier age
than the male; at least this is certainly the case in Cebus azarae. (7.
Rengger, ‘Säugethiere,’ etc., 1830, s. 49.) The males of most species
are larger and stronger than the females, of which fact the gorilla
affords a well-known instance. Even in so trifling a character as the
greater prominence of the superciliary ridge, the males of certain
monkeys differ from the females (8. As in Macacus cynomolgus
(Desmarest, ‘Mammalogie,’ p. 65), and in Hylobates agilis (Geoffroy
St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ‘Histoire Nat. des Mammifères,’ 1824, tom.
i. p. 2)., and agree in this respect with mankind. In the gorilla and
certain other monkeys, the cranium of the adult male presents a
strongly-marked sagittal crest, which is absent in the female; and
Ecker found a trace of a similar difference between the two sexes in
the Australians. (9. ‘Anthropological Review,’ Oct. 1868, p. 353.) With
monkeys when there is any difference in the voice, that of the male is
the more powerful. We have seen that certain male monkeys have a
well-developed beard, which is quite deficient, or much less developed
in the female. No instance is known of the beard, whiskers, or
moustache being larger in the female than in the male monkey. Even in
the colour of the beard there is a curious parallelism between man and
the Quadrumana, for with man when the beard differs in colour from the
hair of the head, as is commonly the case, it is, I believe, almost
always of a lighter tint, being often reddish. I have repeatedly
observed this fact in England; but two gentlemen have lately written to
me, saying that they form an exception to the rule. One of these
gentlemen accounts for the fact by the wide difference in colour of the
hair on the paternal and maternal sides of his family. Both had been
long aware of this peculiarity (one of them having often been accused
of dyeing his beard), and had been thus led to observe other men, and
were convinced that the exceptions were very rare. Dr. Hooker attended
to this little point for me in Russia, and found no exception to the
rule. In Calcutta, Mr. J. Scott, of the Botanic Gardens, was so kind as
to observe the many races of men to be seen there, as well as in some
other parts of India, namely, two races of Sikhim, the Bhoteas,
Hindoos, Burmese, and Chinese, most of which races have very little
hair on the face; and he always found that when there was any
difference in colour between the hair of the head and the beard, the
latter was invariably lighter. Now with monkeys, as has already been
stated, the beard frequently differs strikingly in colour from the hair
of the head, and in such cases it is always of a lighter hue, being
often pure white, sometimes yellow or reddish. (10. Mr. Blyth informs
me that he has only seen one instance of the beard, whiskers, etc., in
a monkey becoming white with old age, as is so commonly the case with
us. This, however, occurred in an aged Macacus cynomolgus, kept in
confinement whose moustaches were “remarkably long and human-like.”
Altogether this old monkey presented a ludicrous resemblance to one of
the reigning monarchs of Europe, after whom he was universally
nick-named. In certain races of man the hair on the head hardly ever
becomes grey; thus Mr. D. Forbes has never, as he informs me, seen an
instance with the Aymaras and Quichuas of South America.)
In regard to the general hairiness of the body, the women in all races
are less hairy than the men; and in some few Quadrumana the under side
of the body of the female is less hairy than that of the male. (11.
This is the case with the females of several species of Hylobates; see
Geoffroy St.-Hilaire and F. Cuvier, ‘Hist. Nat. des Mamm.’ tom. i. See
also, on H. lar, ‘Penny Cyclopedia,’ vol. ii. pp. 149, 150.) Lastly,
male monkeys, like men, are bolder and fiercer than the females. They
lead the troop, and when there is danger, come to the front. We thus
see how close is the parallelism between the sexual differences of man
and the Quadrumana. With some few species, however, as with certain
baboons, the orang and the gorilla, there is a considerably greater
difference between the sexes, as in the size of the canine teeth, in
the development and colour of the hair, and especially in the colour of
the naked parts of the skin, than in mankind.
All the secondary sexual characters of man are highly variable, even
within the limits of the same race; and they differ much in the several
races. These two rules hold good generally throughout the animal
kingdom. In the excellent observations made on board the Novara (12.
The results were deduced by Dr. Weisbach from the measurements made by
Drs. K. Scherzer and Schwarz, see ‘Reise der Novara: Anthropolog.
Theil,’ 1867, ss. 216, 231, 234, 236, 239, 269.), the male Australians
were found to exceed the females by only 65 millim. in height, whilst
with the Javans the average excess was 218 millim.; so that in this
latter race the difference in height between the sexes is more than
thrice as great as with the Australians. Numerous measurements were
carefully made of the stature, the circumference of the neck and chest,
the length of the back-bone and of the arms, in various races; and
nearly all these measurements shew that the males differ much more from
one another than do the females. This fact indicates that, as far as
these characters are concerned, it is the male which has been chiefly
modified, since the several races diverged from their common stock.
The development of the beard and the hairiness of the body differ
remarkably in the men of distinct races, and even in different tribes
or families of the same race. We Europeans see this amongst ourselves.
In the Island of St. Kilda, according to Martin (13. ‘Voyage to St.
Kilda’ (3rd ed. 1753), p. 37.), the men do not acquire beards until the
age of thirty or upwards, and even then the beards are very thin. On
the Europaeo-Asiatic continent, beards prevail until we pass beyond
India; though with the natives of Ceylon they are often absent, as was
noticed in ancient times by Diodorus. (14. Sir J.E. Tennent, ‘Ceylon,’
vol. ii. 1859, p. 107.) Eastward of India beards disappear, as with the
Siamese, Malays, Kalmucks, Chinese, and Japanese; nevertheless, the
Ainos (15. Quatrefages, ‘Revue des Cours Scientifiques,’ Aug. 29, 1868,
p. 630; Vogt, ‘Lectures on Man,’ Eng. trans. p. 127.), who inhabit the
northernmost islands of the Japan Archipelago, are the hairiest men in
the world. With negroes the beard is scanty or wanting, and they rarely
have whiskers; in both sexes the body is frequently almost destitute of
fine down. (16. On the beards of negroes, Vogt, ‘Lectures,’ etc. p.
127; Waitz, ‘Introduct. to Anthropology,’ Engl. translat. 1863, vol. i.
p. 96. It is remarkable that in the United States (‘Investigations in
Military and Anthropological Statistics of American Soldiers,’ 1869, p.
569) the pure negroes and their crossed offspring seem to have bodies
almost as hairy as Europeans.) On the other hand, the Papuans of the
Malay Archipelago, who are nearly as black as negroes, possess
well-developed beards. (17. Wallace, ‘The Malay Arch.’ vol. ii. 1869,
p. 178.) In the Pacific Ocean the inhabitants of the Fiji Archipelago
have large bushy beards, whilst those of the not distant archipelagoes
of Tonga and Samoa are beardless; but these men belong to distinct
races. In the Ellice group all the inhabitants belong to the same race;
yet on one island alone, namely Nunemaya, “the men have splendid
beards”; whilst on the other islands “they have, as a rule, a dozen
straggling hairs for a beard.” (18. Dr. J. Barnard Davis on Oceanic
Races, in ‘Anthropological Review,’ April 1870, pp. 185, 191.)
Throughout the great American continent the men may be said to be
beardless; but in almost all the tribes a few short hairs are apt to
appear on the face, especially in old age. With the tribes of North
America, Catlin estimates that eighteen out of twenty men are
completely destitute by nature of a beard; but occasionally there may
be seen a man, who has neglected to pluck out the hairs at puberty,
with a soft beard an inch or two in length. The Guaranys of Paraguay
differ from all the surrounding tribes in having a small beard, and
even some hair on the body, but no whiskers. (19. Catlin, ‘North
American Indians,’ 3rd. ed. 1842, vol. ii. p. 227. On the Guaranys, see
Azara, ‘Voyages dans l’Amérique Merid.’ tom. ii. 1809, p. 85; also
Rengger, ‘Säugethiere von Paraguay,’ s. 3.) I am informed by Mr. D.
Forbes, who particularly attended to this point, that the Aymaras and
Quichuas of the Cordillera are remarkably hairless, yet in old age a
few straggling hairs occasionally appear on the chin. The men of these
two tribes have very little hair on the various parts of the body where
hair grows abundantly in Europeans, and the women have none on the
corresponding parts. The hair on the head, however, attains an
extraordinary length in both sexes, often reaching almost to the
ground; and this is likewise the case with some of the N. American
tribes. In the amount of hair, and in the general shape of the body,
the sexes of the American aborigines do not differ so much from each
other, as in most other races. (20. Prof. and Mrs. Agassiz (‘Journey in
Brazil,’ p. 530) remark that the sexes of the American Indians differ
less than those of the negroes and of the higher races. See also
Rengger, ibid. p. 3, on the Guaranys.) This fact is analogous with what
occurs with some closely allied monkeys; thus the sexes of the
chimpanzee are not as different as those of the orang or gorilla. (21.
Rutimeyer, ‘Die Grenzen der Thierwelt; eine Betrachtung zu Darwin’s
Lehre,’ 1868, s. 54.)
In the previous chapters we have seen that with mammals, birds, fishes,
insects, etc., many characters, which there is every reason to believe
were primarily gained through sexual selection by one sex, have been
transferred to the other. As this same form of transmission has
apparently prevailed much with mankind, it will save useless repetition
if we discuss the origin of characters peculiar to the male sex
together with certain other characters common to both sexes.
LAW OF BATTLE.
With savages, for instance, the Australians, the women are the constant
cause of war both between members of the same tribe and between
distinct tribes. So no doubt it was in ancient times; “nam fuit ante
Helenam mulier teterrima belli causa.” With some of the North American
Indians, the contest is reduced to a system. That excellent observer,
Hearne (22. ‘A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort,’ 8vo. ed. Dublin,
1796, p. 104. Sir J. Lubbock (‘Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, p. 69)
gives other and similar cases in North America. For the Guanas of South
America see Azara, ‘Voyages,’ etc. tom. ii. p. 94.), says:—“It has ever
been the custom among these people for the men to wrestle for any woman
to whom they are attached; and, of course, the strongest party always
carries off the prize. A weak man, unless he be a good hunter, and
well-beloved, is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man
thinks worth his notice. This custom prevails throughout all the
tribes, and causes a great spirit of emulation among their youth, who
are upon all occasions, from their childhood, trying their strength and
skill in wrestling.” With the Guanas of South America, Azara states
that the men rarely marry till twenty years old or more, as before that
age they cannot conquer their rivals.
Other similar facts could be given; but even if we had no evidence on
this head, we might feel almost sure, from the analogy of the higher
Quadrumana (23. On the fighting of the male gorillas, see Dr. Savage,
in ‘Boston Journal of Natural History,’ vol. v. 1847, p. 423. On
Presbytis entellus, see the ‘Indian Field,’ 1859, p. 146.), that the
law of battle had prevailed with man during the early stages of his
development. The occasional appearance at the present day of canine
teeth which project above the others, with traces of a diastema or open
space for the reception of the opposite canines, is in all probability
a case of reversion to a former state, when the progenitors of man were
provided with these weapons, like so many existing male Quadrumana. It
was remarked in a former chapter that as man gradually became erect,
and continually used his hands and arms for fighting with sticks and
stones, as well as for the other purposes of life, he would have used
his jaws and teeth less and less. The jaws, together with their
muscles, would then have been reduced through disuse, as would the
teeth through the not well understood principles of correlation and
economy of growth; for we everywhere see that parts, which are no
longer of service, are reduced in size. By such steps the original
inequality between the jaws and teeth in the two sexes of mankind would
ultimately have been obliterated. The case is almost parallel with that
of many male Ruminants, in which the canine teeth have been reduced to
mere rudiments, or have disappeared, apparently in consequence of the
development of horns. As the prodigious difference between the skulls
of the two sexes in the orang and gorilla stands in close relation with
the development of the immense canine teeth in the males, we may infer
that the reduction of the jaws and teeth in the early male progenitors
of man must have led to a most striking and favourable change in his
appearance.
There can be little doubt that the greater size and strength of man, in
comparison with woman, together with his broader shoulders, more
developed muscles, rugged outline of body, his greater courage and
pugnacity, are all due in chief part to inheritance from his half-human
male ancestors. These characters would, however, have been preserved or
even augmented during the long ages of man’s savagery, by the success
of the strongest and boldest men, both in the general struggle for life
and in their contests for wives; a success which would have ensured
their leaving a more numerous progeny than their less favoured
brethren. It is not probable that the greater strength of man was
primarily acquired through the inherited effects of his having worked
harder than woman for his own subsistence and that of his family; for
the women in all barbarous nations are compelled to work at least as
hard as the men. With civilised people the arbitrament of battle for
the possession of the women has long ceased; on the other hand, the
men, as a general rule, have to work harder than the women for their
joint subsistence, and thus their greater strength will have been kept
up.
DIFFERENCE IN THE MENTAL POWERS OF THE TWO SEXES.
With respect to differences of this nature between man and woman, it is
probable that sexual selection has played a highly important part. I am
aware that some writers doubt whether there is any such inherent
difference; but this is at least probable from the analogy of the lower
animals which present other secondary sexual characters. No one
disputes that the bull differs in disposition from the cow, the
wild-boar from the sow, the stallion from the mare, and, as is well
known to the keepers of menageries, the males of the larger apes from
the females. Woman seems to differ from man in mental disposition,
chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness; and this holds
good even with savages, as shewn by a well-known passage in Mungo
Park’s Travels, and by statements made by many other travellers. Woman,
owing to her maternal instincts, displays these qualities towards her
infants in an eminent degree; therefore it is likely that she would
often extend them towards her fellow-creatures. Man is the rival of
other men; he delights in competition, and this leads to ambition which
passes too easily into selfishness. These latter qualities seem to be
his natural and unfortunate birthright. It is generally admitted that
with woman the powers of intuition, of rapid perception, and perhaps of
imitation, are more strongly marked than in man; but some, at least, of
these faculties are characteristic of the lower races, and therefore of
a past and lower state of civilisation.
The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is
shewn by man’s attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up,
than can woman—whether requiring deep thought, reason, or imagination,
or merely the use of the senses and hands. If two lists were made of
the most eminent men and women in poetry, painting, sculpture, music
(inclusive both of composition and performance), history, science, and
philosophy, with half-a-dozen names under each subject, the two lists
would not bear comparison. We may also infer, from the law of the
deviation from averages, so well illustrated by Mr. Galton, in his work
on ‘Hereditary Genius,’ that if men are capable of a decided
pre-eminence over women in many subjects, the average of mental power
in man must be above that of woman.
Amongst the half-human progenitors of man, and amongst savages, there
have been struggles between the males during many generations for the
possession of the females. But mere bodily strength and size would do
little for victory, unless associated with courage, perseverance, and
determined energy. With social animals, the young males have to pass
through many a contest before they win a female, and the older males
have to retain their females by renewed battles. They have, also, in
the case of mankind, to defend their females, as well as their young,
from enemies of all kinds, and to hunt for their joint subsistence. But
to avoid enemies or to attack them with success, to capture wild
animals, and to fashion weapons, requires the aid of the higher mental
faculties, namely, observation, reason, invention, or imagination.
These various faculties will thus have been continually put to the test
and selected during manhood; they will, moreover, have been
strengthened by use during this same period of life. Consequently in
accordance with the principle often alluded to, we might expect that
they would at least tend to be transmitted chiefly to the male
offspring at the corresponding period of manhood.
Now, when two men are put into competition, or a man with a woman, both
possessed of every mental quality in equal perfection, save that one
has higher energy, perseverance, and courage, the latter will generally
become more eminent in every pursuit, and will gain the ascendancy.
(24. J. Stuart Mill remarks (‘The Subjection of Women,’ 1869, p. 122),
“The things in which man most excels woman are those which require most
plodding, and long hammering at single thoughts.” What is this but
energy and perseverance?) He may be said to possess genius—for genius
has been declared by a great authority to be patience; and patience, in
this sense, means unflinching, undaunted perseverance. But this view of
genius is perhaps deficient; for without the higher powers of the
imagination and reason, no eminent success can be gained in many
subjects. These latter faculties, as well as the former, will have been
developed in man, partly through sexual selection,—that is, through the
contest of rival males, and partly through natural selection, that is,
from success in the general struggle for life; and as in both cases the
struggle will have been during maturity, the characters gained will
have been transmitted more fully to the male than to the female
offspring. It accords in a striking manner with this view of the
modification and re-inforcement of many of our mental faculties by
sexual selection, that, firstly, they notoriously undergo a
considerable change at puberty (25. Maudsley, ‘Mind and Body,’ p. 31.),
and, secondly, that eunuchs remain throughout life inferior in these
same qualities. Thus, man has ultimately become superior to woman. It
is, indeed, fortunate that the law of the equal transmission of
characters to both sexes prevails with mammals; otherwise, it is
probable that man would have become as superior in mental endowment to
woman, as the peacock is in ornamental plumage to the peahen.
It must be borne in mind that the tendency in characters acquired by
either sex late in life, to be transmitted to the same sex at the same
age, and of early acquired characters to be transmitted to both sexes,
are rules which, though general, do not always hold. If they always
held good, we might conclude (but I here exceed my proper bounds) that
the inherited effects of the early education of boys and girls would be
transmitted equally to both sexes; so that the present inequality in
mental power between the sexes would not be effaced by a similar course
of early training; nor can it have been caused by their dissimilar
early training. In order that woman should reach the same standard as
man, she ought, when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and
perseverance, and to have her reason and imagination exercised to the
highest point; and then she would probably transmit these qualities
chiefly to her adult daughters. All women, however, could not be thus
raised, unless during many generations those who excelled in the above
robust virtues were married, and produced offspring in larger numbers
than other women. As before remarked of bodily strength, although men
do not now fight for their wives, and this form of selection has passed
away, yet during manhood, they generally undergo a severe struggle in
order to maintain themselves and their families; and this will tend to
keep up or even increase their mental powers, and, as a consequence,
the present inequality between the sexes. (26. An observation by Vogt
bears on this subject: he says, “It is a remarkable circumstance, that
the difference between the sexes, as regards the cranial cavity,
increases with the development of the race, so that the male European
excels much more the female, than the negro the negress. Welcker
confirms this statement of Huschke from his measurements of negro and
German skulls.” But Vogt admits (‘Lectures on Man,’ Eng. translat.
1864, p. 81) that more observations are requisite on this point.
VOICE AND MUSICAL POWERS.
In some species of Quadrumana there is a great difference between the
adult sexes, in the power of their voices and in the development of the
vocal organs; and man appears to have inherited this difference from
his early progenitors. His vocal cords are about one-third longer than
in woman, or than in boys; and emasculation produces the same effect on
him as on the lower animals, for it “arrests that prominent growth of
the thyroid, etc., which accompanies the elongation of the cords.” (27.
Owen, ‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 603.) With respect to the
cause of this difference between the sexes, I have nothing to add to
the remarks in the last chapter on the probable effects of the
long-continued use of the vocal organs by the male under the excitement
of love, rage and jealousy. According to Sir Duncan Gibb (28. ‘Journal
of the Anthropological Society,’ April 1869, p. lvii. and lxvi.), the
voice and the form of the larynx differ in the different races of
mankind; but with the Tartars, Chinese, etc., the voice of the male is
said not to differ so much from that of the female, as in most other
races.
The capacity and love for singing or music, though not a sexual
character in man, must not here be passed over. Although the sounds
emitted by animals of all kinds serve many purposes, a strong case can
be made out, that the vocal organs were primarily used and perfected in
relation to the propagation of the species. Insects and some few
spiders are the lowest animals which voluntarily produce any sound; and
this is generally effected by the aid of beautifully constructed
stridulating organs, which are often confined to the males. The sounds
thus produced consist, I believe in all cases, of the same note,
repeated rhythmically (29. Dr. Scudder, ‘Notes on Stridulation,’ in
‘Proc. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.’ vol. xi. April 1868.); and this is
sometimes pleasing even to the ears of man. The chief and, in some
cases, exclusive purpose appears to be either to call or charm the
opposite sex.
The sounds produced by fishes are said in some cases to be made only by
the males during the breeding-season. All the air-breathing Vertebrata
necessarily possess an apparatus for inhaling and expelling air, with a
pipe capable of being closed at one end. Hence when the primeval
members of this class were strongly excited and their muscles violently
contracted, purposeless sounds would almost certainly have been
produced; and these, if they proved in any way serviceable, might
readily have been modified or intensified by the preservation of
properly adapted variations. The lowest Vertebrates which breathe air
are Amphibians; and of these, frogs and toads possess vocal organs,
which are incessantly used during the breeding-season, and which are
often more highly developed in the male than in the female. The male
alone of the tortoise utters a noise, and this only during the season
of love. Male alligators roar or bellow during the same season. Every
one knows how much birds use their vocal organs as a means of
courtship; and some species likewise perform what may be called
instrumental music.
In the class of Mammals, with which we are here more particularly
concerned, the males of almost all the species use their voices during
the breeding-season much more than at any other time; and some are
absolutely mute excepting at this season. With other species both
sexes, or only the females, use their voices as a love-call.
Considering these facts, and that the vocal organs of some quadrupeds
are much more largely developed in the male than in the female, either
permanently or temporarily during the breeding-season; and considering
that in most of the lower classes the sounds produced by the males,
serve not only to call but to excite or allure the female, it is a
surprising fact that we have not as yet any good evidence that these
organs are used by male mammals to charm the females. The American
Mycetes caraya perhaps forms an exception, as does the Hylobates
agilis, an ape allied to man. This gibbon has an extremely loud but
musical voice. Mr. Waterhouse states (30. Given in W.C.L. Martin’s
‘General Introduction to Natural History of Mamm. Animals,’ 1841, p.
432; Owen, ‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii, p. 600.), “It appeared
to me that in ascending and descending the scale, the intervals were
always exactly half-tones; and I am sure that the highest note was the
exact octave to the lowest. The quality of the notes is very musical;
and I do not doubt that a good violinist would be able to give a
correct idea of the gibbon’s composition, excepting as regards its
loudness.” Mr. Waterhouse then gives the notes. Professor Owen, who is
a musician, confirms the foregoing statement, and remarks, though
erroneously, that this gibbon “alone of brute mammals may be said to
sing.” It appears to be much excited after its performance.
Unfortunately, its habits have never been closely observed in a state
of nature; but from the analogy of other animals, it is probable that
it uses its musical powers more especially during the season of
courtship.
This gibbon is not the only species in the genus which sings, for my
son, Francis Darwin, attentively listened in the Zoological Gardens to
H. leuciscus whilst singing a cadence of three notes, in true musical
intervals and with a clear musical tone. It is a more surprising fact
that certain rodents utter musical sounds. Singing mice have often been
mentioned and exhibited, but imposture has commonly been suspected. We
have, however, at last a clear account by a well-known observer, the
Rev. S. Lockwood (31. The ‘American Naturalist,’ 1871, p. 761.), of the
musical powers of an American species, the Hesperomys cognatus,
belonging to a genus distinct from that of the English mouse. This
little animal was kept in confinement, and the performance was
repeatedly heard. In one of the two chief songs, “the last bar would
frequently be prolonged to two or three; and she would sometimes change
from C sharp and D, to C natural and D, then warble on these two notes
awhile, and wind up with a quick chirp on C sharp and D. The
distinctness between the semitones was very marked, and easily
appreciable to a good ear.” Mr. Lockwood gives both songs in musical
notation; and adds that though this little mouse “had no ear for time,
yet she would keep to the key of B (two flats) and strictly in a major
key.”...”Her soft clear voice falls an octave with all the precision
possible; then at the wind up, it rises again into a very quick trill
on C sharp and D.”
A critic has asked how the ears of man, and he ought to have added of
other animals, could have been adapted by selection so as to
distinguish musical notes. But this question shews some confusion on
the subject; a noise is the sensation resulting from the co-existence
of several aerial “simple vibrations” of various periods, each of which
intermits so frequently that its separate existence cannot be
perceived. It is only in the want of continuity of such vibrations, and
in their want of harmony inter se, that a noise differs from a musical
note. Thus an ear to be capable of discriminating noises—and the high
importance of this power to all animals is admitted by every one—must
be sensitive to musical notes. We have evidence of this capacity even
low down in the animal scale: thus Crustaceans are provided with
auditory hairs of different lengths, which have been seen to vibrate
when the proper musical notes are struck. (32. Helmholtz, ‘Theorie
Phys. de la Musique,’ 1868, p. 187.) As stated in a previous chapter,
similar observations have been made on the hairs of the antennae of
gnats. It has been positively asserted by good observers that spiders
are attracted by music. It is also well known that some dogs howl when
hearing particular tones. (33. Several accounts have been published to
this effect. Mr. Peach writes to me that an old dog of his howls when B
flat is sounded on the flute, and to no other note. I may add another
instance of a dog always whining, when one note on a concertina, which
was out of tune, was played.) Seals apparently appreciate music, and
their fondness for it “was well known to the ancients, and is often
taken advantage of by the hunters at the present day.” (34. Mr. R.
Brown, in ‘Proc. Zool. Soc.’ 1868, p. 410.)
Therefore, as far as the mere perception of musical notes is concerned,
there seems no special difficulty in the case of man or of any other
animal. Helmholtz has explained on physiological principles why
concords are agreeable, and discords disagreeable to the human ear; but
we are little concerned with these, as music in harmony is a late
invention. We are more concerned with melody, and here again, according
to Helmholtz, it is intelligible why the notes of our musical scale are
used. The ear analyses all sounds into their component “simple
vibrations,” although we are not conscious of this analysis. In a
musical note the lowest in pitch of these is generally predominant, and
the others which are less marked are the octave, the twelfth, the
second octave, etc., all harmonies of the fundamental predominant note;
any two notes of our scale have many of these harmonic over-tones in
common. It seems pretty clear then, that if an animal always wished to
sing precisely the same song, he would guide himself by sounding those
notes in succession, which possess many over-tones in common—that is,
he would choose for his song, notes which belong to our musical scale.
But if it be further asked why musical tones in a certain order and
rhythm give man and other animals pleasure, we can no more give the
reason than for the pleasantness of certain tastes and smells. That
they do give pleasure of some kind to animals, we may infer from their
being produced during the season of courtship by many insects, spiders,
fishes, amphibians, and birds; for unless the females were able to
appreciate such sounds and were excited or charmed by them, the
persevering efforts of the males, and the complex structures often
possessed by them alone, would be useless; and this it is impossible to
believe.
Human song is generally admitted to be the basis or origin of
instrumental music. As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of
producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man in
reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst the
most mysterious with which he is endowed. They are present, though in a
very rude condition, in men of all races, even the most savage; but so
different is the taste of the several races, that our music gives no
pleasure to savages, and their music is to us in most cases hideous and
unmeaning. Dr. Seemann, in some interesting remarks on this subject
(35. ‘Journal of Anthropological Society,’ Oct. 1870, p. clv. See also
the several later chapters in Sir John Lubbock’s ‘Prehistoric Times,’
2nd ed. 1869, which contain an admirable account of the habits of
savages.), “doubts whether even amongst the nations of Western Europe,
intimately connected as they are by close and frequent intercourse, the
music of the one is interpreted in the same sense by the others. By
travelling eastwards we find that there is certainly a different
language of music. Songs of joy and dance-accompaniments are no longer,
as with us, in the major keys, but always in the minor.” Whether or not
the half-human progenitors of man possessed, like the singing gibbons,
the capacity of producing, and therefore no doubt of appreciating,
musical notes, we know that man possessed these faculties at a very
remote period. M. Lartet has described two flutes made out of the bones
and horns of the reindeer, found in caves together with flint tools and
the remains of extinct animals. The arts of singing and of dancing are
also very ancient, and are now practised by all or nearly all the
lowest races of man. Poetry, which may be considered as the offspring
of song, is likewise so ancient, that many persons have felt astonished
that it should have arisen during the earliest ages of which we have
any record.
We see that the musical faculties, which are not wholly deficient in
any race, are capable of prompt and high development, for Hottentots
and Negroes have become excellent musicians, although in their native
countries they rarely practise anything that we should consider music.
Schweinfurth, however, was pleased with some of the simple melodies
which he heard in the interior of Africa. But there is nothing
anomalous in the musical faculties lying dormant in man: some species
of birds which never naturally sing, can without much difficulty be
taught to do so; thus a house-sparrow has learnt the song of a linnet.
As these two species are closely allied, and belong to the order of
Insessores, which includes nearly all the singing-birds in the world,
it is possible that a progenitor of the sparrow may have been a
songster. It is more remarkable that parrots, belonging to a group
distinct from the Insessores, and having differently constructed vocal
organs, can be taught not only to speak, but to pipe or whistle tunes
invented by man, so that they must have some musical capacity.
Nevertheless it would be very rash to assume that parrots are descended
from some ancient form which was a songster. Many cases could be
advanced of organs and instincts originally adapted for one purpose,
having been utilised for some distinct purpose. (36. Since this chapter
was printed, I have seen a valuable article by Mr. Chauncey Wright
(‘North American Review,’ Oct. 1870, page 293), who, in discussing the
above subject, remarks, “There are many consequences of the ultimate
laws or uniformities of nature, through which the acquisition of one
useful power will bring with it many resulting advantages as well as
limiting disadvantages, actual or possible, which the principle of
utility may not have comprehended in its action.” As I have attempted
to shew in an early chapter of this work, this principle has an
important bearing on the acquisition by man of some of his mental
characteristics.) Hence the capacity for high musical development which
the savage races of man possess, may be due either to the practice by
our semi-human progenitors of some rude form of music, or simply to
their having acquired the proper vocal organs for a different purpose.
But in this latter case we must assume, as in the above instance of
parrots, and as seems to occur with many animals, that they already
possessed some sense of melody.
Music arouses in us various emotions, but not the more terrible ones of
horror, fear, rage, etc. It awakens the gentler feelings of tenderness
and love, which readily pass into devotion. In the Chinese annals it is
said, “Music hath the power of making heaven descend upon earth.” It
likewise stirs up in us the sense of triumph and the glorious ardour
for war. These powerful and mingled feelings may well give rise to the
sense of sublimity. We can concentrate, as Dr. Seemann observes,
greater intensity of feeling in a single musical note than in pages of
writing. It is probable that nearly the same emotions, but much weaker
and far less complex, are felt by birds when the male pours forth his
full volume of song, in rivalry with other males, to captivate the
female. Love is still the commonest theme of our songs. As Herbert
Spencer remarks, “music arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not
conceived the possibility, and do not know the meaning; or, as Richter
says, tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see.”
Conversely, when vivid emotions are felt and expressed by the orator,
or even in common speech, musical cadences and rhythm are instinctively
used. The negro in Africa when excited often bursts forth in song;
“another will reply in song, whilst the company, as if touched by a
musical wave, murmur a chorus in perfect unison.” (37. Winwood Reade,
‘The Martyrdom of Man,’ 1872, p. 441, and ‘African Sketch Book,’ 1873,
vol. ii. p. 313.) Even monkeys express strong feelings in different
tones—anger and impatience by low,—fear and pain by high notes. (38.
Rengger, ‘Säugethiere von Paraguay,’ s. 49.) The sensations and ideas
thus excited in us by music, or expressed by the cadences of oratory,
appear from their vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions to the
emotions and thoughts of a long-past age.
All these facts with respect to music and impassioned speech become
intelligible to a certain extent, if we may assume that musical tones
and rhythm were used by our half-human ancestors, during the season of
courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited not only by love, but
by the strong passions of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph. From the
deeply-laid principle of inherited associations, musical tones in this
case would be likely to call up vaguely and indefinitely the strong
emotions of a long-past age. As we have every reason to suppose that
articulate speech is one of the latest, as it certainly is the highest,
of the arts acquired by man, and as the instinctive power of producing
musical notes and rhythms is developed low down in the animal series,
it would be altogether opposed to the principle of evolution, if we
were to admit that man’s musical capacity has been developed from the
tones used in impassioned speech. We must suppose that the rhythms and
cadences of oratory are derived from previously developed musical
powers. (39. See the very interesting discussion on the ‘Origin and
Function of Music,’ by Mr. Herbert Spencer, in his collected ‘Essays,’
1858, p. 359. Mr. Spencer comes to an exactly opposite conclusion to
that at which I have arrived. He concludes, as did Diderot formerly,
that the cadences used in emotional speech afford the foundation from
which music has been developed; whilst I conclude that musical notes
and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of
mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex. Thus musical tones
became firmly associated with some of the strongest passions an animal
is capable of feeling, and are consequently used instinctively, or
through association when strong emotions are expressed in speech. Mr.
Spencer does not offer any satisfactory explanation, nor can I, why
high or deep notes should be expressive, both with man and the lower
animals, of certain emotions. Mr. Spencer gives also an interesting
discussion on the relations between poetry, recitative and song.) We
can thus understand how it is that music, dancing, song, and poetry are
such very ancient arts. We may go even further than this, and, as
remarked in a former chapter, believe that musical sounds afforded one
of the bases for the development of language. (40. I find in Lord
Monboddo’s ‘Origin of Language,’ vol. i. 1774, p. 469, that Dr.
Blacklock likewise thought “that the first language among men was
music, and that before our ideas were expressed by articulate sounds,
they were communicated by tones varied according to different degrees
of gravity and acuteness.”)
As the males of several quadrumanous animals have their vocal organs
much more developed than in the females, and as a gibbon, one of the
anthropomorphous apes, pours forth a whole octave of musical notes and
may be said to sing, it appears probable that the progenitors of man,
either the males or females or both sexes, before acquiring the power
of expressing their mutual love in articulate language, endeavoured to
charm each other with musical notes and rhythm. So little is known
about the use of the voice by the Quadrumana during the season of love,
that we have no means of judging whether the habit of singing was first
acquired by our male or female ancestors. Women are generally thought
to possess sweeter voices than men, and as far as this serves as any
guide, we may infer that they first acquired musical powers in order to
attract the other sex. (41. See an interesting discussion on this
subject by Haeckel, ‘Generelle Morphologie,’ B. ii. 1866, s. 246.) But
if so, this must have occurred long ago, before our ancestors had
become sufficiently human to treat and value their women merely as
useful slaves. The impassioned orator, bard, or musician, when with his
varied tones and cadences he excites the strongest emotions in his
hearers, little suspects that he uses the same means by which his
half-human ancestors long ago aroused each other’s ardent passions,
during their courtship and rivalry.
THE INFLUENCE OF BEAUTY IN DETERMINING THE MARRIAGES OF MANKIND.
In civilised life man is largely, but by no means exclusively,
influenced in the choice of his wife by external appearance; but we are
chiefly concerned with primeval times, and our only means of forming a
judgment on this subject is to study the habits of existing
semi-civilised and savage nations. If it can be shewn that the men of
different races prefer women having various characteristics, or
conversely with the women, we have then to enquire whether such choice,
continued during many generations, would produce any sensible effect on
the race, either on one sex or both according to the form of
inheritance which has prevailed.
It will be well first to shew in some detail that savages pay the
greatest attention to their personal appearance. (42. A full and
excellent account of the manner in which savages in all parts of the
world ornament themselves, is given by the Italian traveller, Professor
Mantegazza, ‘Rio de la Plata, Viaggi e Studi,’ 1867, pp. 525-545; all
the following statements, when other references are not given, are
taken from this work. See, also, Waitz, ‘Introduction to Anthropology,’
Eng. translat. vol. i. 1863, p. 275, et passim. Lawrence also gives
very full details in his ‘Lectures on Physiology,’ 1822. Since this
chapter was written Sir J. Lubbock has published his ‘Origin of
Civilisation,’ 1870, in which there is an interesting chapter on the
present subject, and from which (pp. 42, 48) I have taken some facts
about savages dyeing their teeth and hair, and piercing their teeth.)
That they have a passion for ornament is notorious; and an English
philosopher goes so far as to maintain, that clothes were first made
for ornament and not for warmth. As Professor Waitz remarks, “however
poor and miserable man is, he finds a pleasure in adorning himself.”
The extravagance of the naked Indians of South America in decorating
themselves is shewn “by a man of large stature gaining with difficulty
enough by the labour of a fortnight to procure in exchange the chica
necessary to paint himself red.” (43. Humboldt, ‘Personal Narrative,’
Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 515; on the imagination shewn in painting
the body, p. 522; on modifying the form of the calf of the leg, p.
466.) The ancient barbarians of Europe during the Reindeer period
brought to their caves any brilliant or singular objects which they
happened to find. Savages at the present day everywhere deck themselves
with plumes, necklaces, armlets, ear-rings, etc. They paint themselves
in the most diversified manner. “If painted nations,” as Humboldt
observes, “had been examined with the same attention as clothed
nations, it would have been perceived that the most fertile imagination
and the most mutable caprice have created the fashions of painting, as
well as those of garments.”
In one part of Africa the eyelids are coloured black; in another the
nails are coloured yellow or purple. In many places the hair is dyed of
various tints. In different countries the teeth are stained black, red,
blue, etc., and in the Malay Archipelago it is thought shameful to have
white teeth “like those of a dog.” Not one great country can be named,
from the polar regions in the north to New Zealand in the south, in
which the aborigines do not tattoo themselves. This practice was
followed by the Jews of old, and by the ancient Britons. In Africa some
of the natives tattoo themselves, but it is a much more common practice
to raise protuberances by rubbing salt into incisions made in various
parts of the body; and these are considered by the inhabitants of
Kordofan and Darfur “to be great personal attractions.” In the Arab
countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks “or temples have
been gashed.” (44. ‘The Nile Tributaries,’ 1867; ‘The Albert N’yanza,’
1866, vol. i. p. 218.) In South America, as Humboldt remarks, “a mother
would be accused of culpable indifference towards her children, if she
did not employ artificial means to shape the calf of the leg after the
fashion of the country.” In the Old and New Worlds the shape of the
skull was formerly modified during infancy in the most extraordinary
manner, as is still the case in many places, and such deformities are
considered ornamental. For instance, the savages of Colombia (45.
Quoted by Prichard, ‘Physical History of Mankind,’ 4th ed. vol. i.
1851, p. 321.) deem a much flattened head “an essential point of
beauty.”
The hair is treated with especial care in various countries; it is
allowed to grow to full length, so as to reach to the ground, or is
combed into “a compact frizzled mop, which is the Papuan’s pride and
glory.” (46. On the Papuans, Wallace, ‘The Malay Archipelago,’ vol. ii.
p. 445. On the coiffure of the Africans, Sir S. Baker, ‘The Albert
N’yanza,’ vol. i. p. 210.) In northern Africa “a man requires a period
of from eight to ten years to perfect his coiffure.” With other nations
the head is shaved, and in parts of South America and Africa even the
eyebrows and eyelashes are eradicated. The natives of the Upper Nile
knock out the four front teeth, saying that they do not wish to
resemble brutes. Further south, the Batokas knock out only the two
upper incisors, which, as Livingstone (47. ‘Travels,’ p. 533.) remarks,
gives the face a hideous appearance, owing to the prominence of the
lower jaw; but these people think the presence of the incisors most
unsightly, and on beholding some Europeans, cried out, “Look at the
great teeth!” The chief Sebituani tried in vain to alter this fashion.
In various parts of Africa and in the Malay Archipelago the natives
file the incisors into points like those of a saw, or pierce them with
holes, into which they insert studs.
As the face with us is chiefly admired for its beauty, so with savages
it is the chief seat of mutilation. In all quarters of the world the
septum, and more rarely the wings of the nose are pierced; rings,
sticks, feathers, and other ornaments being inserted into the holes.
The ears are everywhere pierced and similarly ornamented, and with the
Botocudos and Lenguas of South America the hole is gradually so much
enlarged that the lower edge touches the shoulder. In North and South
America and in Africa either the upper or lower lip is pierced; and
with the Botocudos the hole in the lower lip is so large that a disc of
wood, four inches in diameter, is placed in it. Mantegazza gives a
curious account of the shame felt by a South American native, and of
the ridicule which he excited, when he sold his tembeta,—the large
coloured piece of wood which is passed through the hole. In Central
Africa the women perforate the lower lip and wear a crystal, which,
from the movement of the tongue, has “a wriggling motion, indescribably
ludicrous during conversation.” The wife of the chief of Latooka told
Sir S. Baker (49. ‘The Albert N’yanza,’ 1866, vol. i. p. 217.) that
Lady Baker “would be much improved if she would extract her four front
teeth from the lower jaw, and wear the long pointed polished crystal in
her under lip.” Further south with the Makalolo, the upper lip is
perforated, and a large metal and bamboo ring, called a pelele, is worn
in the hole. “This caused the lip in one case to project two inches
beyond the tip of the nose; and when the lady smiled, the contraction
of the muscles elevated it over the eyes. ‘Why do the women wear these
things?’ the venerable chief, Chinsurdi, was asked. Evidently surprised
at such a stupid question, he replied, ‘For beauty! They are the only
beautiful things women have; men have beards, women have none. What
kind of a person would she be without the pelele? She would not be a
woman at all with a mouth like a man, but no beard.’” (49. Livingstone,
‘British Association,’ 1860; report given in the ‘Athenaeum,’ July 7,
1860, p. 29.)
Hardly any part of the body, which can be unnaturally modified, has
escaped. The amount of suffering thus caused must have been extreme,
for many of the operations require several years for their completion,
so that the idea of their necessity must be imperative. The motives are
various; the men paint their bodies to make themselves appear terrible
in battle; certain mutilations are connected with religious rites, or
they mark the age of puberty, or the rank of the man, or they serve to
distinguish the tribes. Amongst savages the same fashions prevail for
long periods (50. Sir S. Baker (ibid. vol. i. p. 210) speaking of the
natives of Central Africa says, “every tribe has a distinct and
unchanging fashion for dressing the hair.” See Agassiz (‘Journey in
Brazil,’ 1868, p. 318) on invariability of the tattooing of Amazonian
Indians.), and thus mutilations, from whatever cause first made, soon
come to be valued as distinctive marks. But self-adornment, vanity, and
the admiration of others, seem to be the commonest motives. In regard
to tattooing, I was told by the missionaries in New Zealand that when
they tried to persuade some girls to give up the practice, they
answered, “We must just have a few lines on our lips; else when we grow
old we shall be so very ugly.” With the men of New Zealand, a most
capable judge (51. Rev. R. Taylor, ‘New Zealand and its Inhabitants,’
1855, p. 152.) says, “to have fine tattooed faces was the great
ambition of the young, both to render themselves attractive to the
ladies, and conspicuous in war.” A star tattooed on the forehead and a
spot on the chin are thought by the women in one part of Africa to be
irresistible attractions. (52. Mantegazza, ‘Viaggi e Studi,’ p. 542.)
In most, but not all parts of the world, the men are more ornamented
than the women, and often in a different manner; sometimes, though
rarely, the women are hardly at all ornamented. As the women are made
by savages to perform the greatest share of the work, and as they are
not allowed to eat the best kinds of food, so it accords with the
characteristic selfishness of man that they should not be allowed to
obtain, or use the finest ornaments. Lastly, it is a remarkable fact,
as proved by the foregoing quotations, that the same fashions in
modifying the shape of the head, in ornamenting the hair, in painting,
tattooing, in perforating the nose, lips, or ears, in removing or
filing the teeth, etc., now prevail, and have long prevailed, in the
most distant quarters of the world. It is extremely improbable that
these practices, followed by so many distinct nations, should be due to
tradition from any common source. They indicate the close similarity of
the mind of man, to whatever race he may belong, just as do the almost
universal habits of dancing, masquerading, and making rude pictures.
Having made these preliminary remarks on the admiration felt by savages
for various ornaments, and for deformities most unsightly in our eyes,
let us see how far the men are attracted by the appearance of their
women, and what are their ideas of beauty. I have heard it maintained
that savages are quite indifferent about the beauty of their women,
valuing them solely as slaves; it may therefore be well to observe that
this conclusion does not at all agree with the care which the women
take in ornamenting themselves, or with their vanity. Burchell (53.
‘Travels in South Africa,’ 1824, vol. i. p. 414.) gives an amusing
account of a Bush-woman who used as much grease, red ochre, and shining
powder “as would have ruined any but a very rich husband.” She
displayed also “much vanity and too evident a consciousness of her
superiority.” Mr. Winwood Reade informs me that the negroes of the West
Coast often discuss the beauty of their women. Some competent observers
have attributed the fearfully common practice of infanticide partly to
the desire felt by the women to retain their good looks. (54. See, for
references, Gerland, ‘Ueber das Aussterben der Naturvölker,’ 1868, ss.
51, 53, 55; also Azara, ‘Voyages,’ etc., tom. ii. p. 116.) In several
regions the women wear charms and use love-philters to gain the
affections of the men; and Mr. Brown enumerates four plants used for
this purpose by the women of North-Western America. (55. On the
vegetable productions used by the North-Western American Indians, see
‘Pharmaceutical Journal,’ vol. x.)
Hearne (56. ‘A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort,’ 8vo. ed. 1796, p.
89.), an excellent observer, who lived many years with the American
Indians, says, in speaking of the women, “Ask a Northern Indian what is
beauty, and he will answer, a broad flat face, small eyes, high
cheek-bones, three or four broad black lines across each cheek, a low
forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook nose, a tawny hide, and
breasts hanging down to the belt.” Pallas, who visited the northern
parts of the Chinese empire, says, “those women are preferred who have
the Mandschu form; that is to say, a broad face, high cheek-bones, very
broad noses, and enormous ears”(57. Quoted by Prichard, ‘Physical
History of Mankind,’ 3rd ed. vol. iv. 1844, p. 519; Vogt, ‘Lectures on
Man,’ Eng. translat. p. 129. On the opinion of the Chinese on the
Cingalese, E. Tennent, ‘Ceylon,’ 1859, vol. ii. p. 107.); and Vogt
remarks that the obliquity of the eye, which is proper to the Chinese
and Japanese, is exaggerated in their pictures for the purpose, as it
“seems, of exhibiting its beauty, as contrasted with the eye of the
red-haired barbarians.” It is well known, as Huc repeatedly remarks,
that the Chinese of the interior think Europeans hideous, with their
white skins and prominent noses. The nose is far from being too
prominent, according to our ideas, in the natives of Ceylon; yet “the
Chinese in the seventh century, accustomed to the flat features of the
Mongol races, were surprised at the prominent noses of the Cingalese;
and Thsang described them as having ‘the beak of a bird, with the body
of a man.’”
Finlayson, after minutely describing the people of Cochin China, says
that their rounded heads and faces are their chief characteristics;
and, he adds, “the roundness of the whole countenance is more striking
in the women, who are reckoned beautiful in proportion as they display
this form of face.” The Siamese have small noses with divergent
nostrils, a wide mouth, rather thick lips, a remarkably large face,
with very high and broad cheek-bones. It is, therefore, not wonderful
that “beauty, according to our notion, is a stranger to them. Yet they
consider their own females to be much more beautiful than those of
Europe.” (58. Prichard, as taken from Crawfurd and Finlayson, ‘Phys.
Hist. of Mankind,’ vol. iv. pp. 534, 535.)
It is well known that with many Hottentot women the posterior part of
the body projects in a wonderful manner; they are steatopygous; and Sir
Andrew Smith is certain that this peculiarity is greatly admired by the
men. (59. Idem illustrissimus viator dixit mihi praecinctorium vel
tabulam foeminae, quod nobis teterrimum est, quondam permagno aestimari
ab hominibus in hac gente. Nunc res mutata est, et censent talem
conformationem minime optandam esse.) He once saw a woman who was
considered a beauty, and she was so immensely developed behind, that
when seated on level ground she could not rise, and had to push herself
along until she came to a slope. Some of the women in various negro
tribes have the same peculiarity; and, according to Burton, the Somal
men are said to choose their wives by ranging them in a line, and by
picking her out who projects farthest a tergo. Nothing can be more
hateful to a negro than the opposite form.” (60. The ‘Anthropological
Review,’ November 1864, p. 237. For additional references, see Waitz,
‘Introduction to Anthropology,’ Eng. translat., 1863, vol. i. p. 105.)
With respect to colour, the negroes rallied Mungo Park on the whiteness
of his skin and the prominence of his nose, both of which they
considered as “unsightly and unnatural conformations.” He in return
praised the glossy jet of their skins and the lovely depression of
their noses; this they said was “honeymouth,” nevertheless they gave
him food. The African Moors, also, “knitted their brows and seemed to
shudder” at the whiteness of his skin. On the eastern coast, the negro
boys when they saw Burton, cried out, “Look at the white man; does he
not look like a white ape?” On the western coast, as Mr. Winwood Reade
informs me, the negroes admire a very black skin more than one of a
lighter tint. But their horror of whiteness may be attributed,
according to this same traveller, partly to the belief held by most
negroes that demons and spirits are white, and partly to their thinking
it a sign of ill-health.
The Banyai of the more southern part of the continent are negroes, but
“a great many of them are of a light coffee-and-milk colour, and,
indeed, this colour is considered handsome throughout the whole
country”; so that here we have a different standard of taste. With the
Kaffirs, who differ much from negroes, “the skin, except among the
tribes near Delagoa Bay, is not usually black, the prevailing colour
being a mixture of black and red, the most common shade being
chocolate. Dark complexions, as being most common, are naturally held
in the highest esteem. To be told that he is light-coloured, or like a
white man, would be deemed a very poor compliment by a Kaffir. I have
heard of one unfortunate man who was so very fair that no girl would
marry him.” One of the titles of the Zulu king is, “You who are black.”
(61. Mungo Park’s ‘Travels in Africa,’ 4to. 1816, pp. 53, 131. Burton’s
statement is quoted by Schaaffhausen, ‘Archiv. fur Anthropologie,’
1866, s. 163. On the Banyai, Livingstone, ‘Travels,’ p. 64. On the
Kaffirs, the Rev. J. Shooter, ‘The Kafirs of Natal and the Zulu
Country,’ 1857, p. 1.) Mr. Galton, in speaking to me about the natives
of S. Africa, remarked that their ideas of beauty seem very different
from ours; for in one tribe two slim, slight, and pretty girls were not
admired by the natives.
Turning to other quarters of the world; in Java, a yellow, not a white
girl, is considered, according to Madame Pfeiffer, a beauty. A man of
Cochin China “spoke with contempt of the wife of the English
Ambassador, that she had white teeth like a dog, and a rosy colour like
that of potato-flowers.” We have seen that the Chinese dislike our
white skin, and that the N. Americans admire “a tawny hide.” In S.
America, the Yuracaras, who inhabit the wooded, damp slopes of the
eastern Cordillera, are remarkably pale-coloured, as their name in
their own language expresses; nevertheless they consider European women
as very inferior to their own. (62. For the Javans and Cochin-Chinese,
see Waitz, ‘Introduct. to Anthropology,’ Eng. translat. vol. i. p. 305.
On the Yuracaras, A. d’Orbigny, as quoted in Prichard, ‘Physical
History of Mankind,’ vol. v. 3rd ed. p. 476.)
In several of the tribes of North America the hair on the head grows to
a wonderful length; and Catlin gives a curious proof how much this is
esteemed, for the chief of the Crows was elected to this office from
having the longest hair of any man in the tribe, namely ten feet and
seven inches. The Aymaras and Quichuas of S. America, likewise have
very long hair; and this, as Mr. D. Forbes informs me, is so much
valued as a beauty, that cutting it off was the severest punishment
which he could inflict on them. In both the Northern and Southern
halves of the continent the natives sometimes increase the apparent
length of their hair by weaving into it fibrous substances. Although
the hair on the head is thus cherished, that on the face is considered
by the North American Indians “as very vulgar,” and every hair is
carefully eradicated. This practice prevails throughout the American
continent from Vancouver’s Island in the north to Tierra del Fuego in
the south. When York Minster, a Fuegian on board the “Beagle,” was
taken back to his country, the natives told him he ought to pull out
the few short hairs on his face. They also threatened a young
missionary, who was left for a time with them, to strip him naked, and
pluck the hair from his face and body, yet he was far from being a
hairy man. This fashion is carried so far that the Indians of Paraguay
eradicate their eyebrows and eyelashes, saying that they do not wish to
be like horses. (63. ‘North American Indians,’ by G. Catlin, 3rd ed.,
1842, vol. i. p. 49; vol. ii, p. 227. On the natives of Vancouver’s
Island, see Sproat, ‘Scenes and Studies of Savage Life,’ 1868, p. 25.
On the Indians of Paraguay, Azara, ‘Voyages,’ tom. ii. p. 105.)
It is remarkable that throughout the world the races which are almost
completely destitute of a beard dislike hairs on the face and body, and
take pains to eradicate them. The Kalmucks are beardless, and they are
well known, like the Americans, to pluck out all straggling hairs; and
so it is with the Polynesians, some of the Malays, and the Siamese. Mr.
Veitch states that the Japanese ladies “all objected to our whiskers,
considering them very ugly, and told us to cut them off, and be like
Japanese men.” The New Zealanders have short, curled beards; yet they
formerly plucked out the hairs on the face. They had a saying that
“there is no woman for a hairy man;” but it would appear that the
fashion has changed in New Zealand, perhaps owing to the presence of
Europeans, and I am assured that beards are now admired by the Maories.
(64. On the Siamese, Prichard, ibid. vol. iv. p. 533. On the Japanese,
Veitch in ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ 1860, p. 1104. On the New Zealanders,
Mantegazza, ‘Viaggi e Studi,’ 1867, p. 526. For the other nations
mentioned, see references in Lawrence, ‘Lectures on Physiology,’ etc.,
1822, p. 272.)
On the other hand, bearded races admire and greatly value their beards;
among the Anglo-Saxons every part of the body had a recognised value;
“the loss of the beard being estimated at twenty shillings, while the
breaking of a thigh was fixed at only twelve.” (65. Lubbock, ‘Origin of
Civilisation,’ 1870, p. 321.) In the East men swear solemnly by their
beards. We have seen that Chinsurdi, the chief of the Makalolo in
Africa, thought that beards were a great ornament. In the Pacific the
Fijian’s beard is “profuse and bushy, and is his greatest pride”;
whilst the inhabitants of the adjacent archipelagoes of Tonga and Samoa
are “beardless, and abhor a rough chin.” In one island alone of the
Ellice group “the men are heavily bearded, and not a little proud
thereof.” (66. Dr. Barnard Davis quotes Mr. Prichard and others for
these facts in regard to the Polynesians, in ‘Anthropolog. Review,’
April 1870, pp. 185, 191.)
We thus see how widely the different races of man differ in their taste
for the beautiful. In every nation sufficiently advanced to have made
effigies of their gods or of their deified rulers, the sculptors no
doubt have endeavoured to express their highest ideal of beauty and
grandeur. (67. Ch. Comte has remarks to this effect in his ‘Traité de
Législation,’ 3rd ed. 1837, p. 136.) Under this point of view it is
well to compare in our mind the Jupiter or Apollo of the Greeks with
the Egyptian or Assyrian statues; and these with the hideous
bas-reliefs on the ruined buildings of Central America.
I have met with very few statements opposed to this conclusion. Mr.
Winwood Reade, however, who has had ample opportunities for
observation, not only with the negroes of the West Coast of Africa, but
with those of the interior who have never associated with Europeans, is
convinced that their ideas of beauty are ON THE WHOLE the same as ours;
and Dr. Rohlfs writes to me to the same effect with respect to Bornu
and the countries inhabited by the Pullo tribes. Mr. Reade found that
he agreed with the negroes in their estimation of the beauty of the
native girls; and that their appreciation of the beauty of European
women corresponded with ours. They admire long hair, and use artificial
means to make it appear abundant; they admire also a beard, though
themselves very scantily provided. Mr. Reade feels doubtful what kind
of nose is most appreciated; a girl has been heard to say, “I do not
want to marry him, he has got no nose”; and this shews that a very flat
nose is not admired. We should, however, bear in mind that the
depressed, broad noses and projecting jaws of the negroes of the West
Coast are exceptional types with the inhabitants of Africa.
Notwithstanding the foregoing statements, Mr. Reade admits that negroes
“do not like the colour of our skin; they look on blue eyes with
aversion, and they think our noses too long and our lips too thin.” He
does not think it probable that negroes would ever prefer the most
beautiful European woman, on the mere grounds of physical admiration,
to a good-looking negress. (68. The ‘African Sketch Book,’ vol. ii.
1873, pp. 253, 394, 521. The Fuegians, as I have been informed by a
missionary who long resided with them, consider European women as
extremely beautiful; but from what we have seen of the judgment of the
other aborigines of America, I cannot but think that this must be a
mistake, unless indeed the statement refers to the few Fuegians who
have lived for some time with Europeans, and who must consider us as
superior beings. I should add that a most experienced observer, Capt.
Burton, believes that a woman whom we consider beautiful is admired
throughout the world. ‘Anthropological Review,’ March, 1864, p. 245.)
The general truth of the principle, long ago insisted on by Humboldt
(69. ‘Personal Narrative,’ Eng. translat. vol. iv. p. 518, and
elsewhere. Mantegazza, in his ‘Viaggi e Studi,’ strongly insists on
this same principle.), that man admires and often tries to exaggerate
whatever characters nature may have given him, is shewn in many ways.
The practice of beardless races extirpating every trace of a beard, and
often all the hairs on the body affords one illustration. The skull has
been greatly modified during ancient and modern times by many nations;
and there can be little doubt that this has been practised, especially
in N. and S. America, in order to exaggerate some natural and admired
peculiarity. Many American Indians are known to admire a head so
extremely flattened as to appear to us idiotic. The natives on the
north-western coast compress the head into a pointed cone; and it is
their constant practice to gather the hair into a knot on the top of
the head, for the sake, as Dr. Wilson remarks, “of increasing the
apparent elevation of the favourite conoid form.” The inhabitants of
Arakhan admire a broad, smooth forehead, and in order to produce it,
they fasten a plate of lead on the heads of the new-born children. On
the other hand, “a broad, well-rounded occiput is considered a great
beauty” by the natives of the Fiji Islands. (70. On the skulls of the
American tribes, see Nott and Gliddon, ‘Types of Mankind,’ 1854, p.
440; Prichard, ‘Physical History of Mankind,’ vol. i. 3rd ed. p. 321;
on the natives of Arakhan, ibid. vol. iv. p. 537. Wilson, ‘Physical
Ethnology,’ Smithsonian Institution, 1863, p. 288; on the Fijians, p.
290. Sir J. Lubbock (‘Prehistoric Times,’ 2nd ed. 1869, p. 506) gives
an excellent resume on this subject.)
As with the skull, so with the nose; the ancient Huns during the age of
Attila were accustomed to flatten the noses of their infants with
bandages, “for the sake of exaggerating a natural conformation.” With
the Tahitians, to be called LONG-NOSE is considered as an insult, and
they compress the noses and foreheads of their children for the sake of
beauty. The same holds with the Malays of Sumatra, the Hottentots,
certain Negroes, and the natives of Brazil. (71. On the Huns, Godron,
‘De l’Espèce,’ tom. ii. 1859, p. 300. On the Tahitians, Waitz,
‘Anthropology,’ Eng. translat. vol. i. p. 305. Marsden, quoted by
Prichard, ‘Phys. Hist. of Mankind,’ 3rd edit. vol. v. p. 67. Lawrence,
‘Lectures on Physiology,’ p. 337.) The Chinese have by nature unusually
small feet (72. This fact was ascertained in the ‘Reise der Novara:
Anthropolog. Theil.’ Dr. Weisbach, 1867, s. 265.); and it is well known
that the women of the upper classes distort their feet to make them
still smaller. Lastly, Humboldt thinks that the American Indians prefer
colouring their bodies with red paint in order to exaggerate their
natural tint; and until recently European women added to their
naturally bright colours by rouge and white cosmetics; but it may be
doubted whether barbarous nations have generally had any such intention
in painting themselves.
In the fashions of our own dress we see exactly the same principle and
the same desire to carry every point to an extreme; we exhibit, also,
the same spirit of emulation. But the fashions of savages are far more
permanent than ours; and whenever their bodies are artificially
modified, this is necessarily the case. The Arab women of the Upper
Nile occupy about three days in dressing their hair; they never imitate
other tribes, “but simply vie with each other in the superlativeness of
their own style.” Dr. Wilson, in speaking of the compressed skulls of
various American races, adds, “such usages are among the least
eradicable, and long survive the shock of revolutions that change
dynasties and efface more important national peculiarities.” (73.
‘Smithsonian Institution,’ 1863, p. 289. On the fashions of Arab women,
Sir S. Baker, ‘The Nile Tributaries,’ 1867, p. 121.) The same principle
comes into play in the art of breeding; and we can thus understand, as
I have elsewhere explained (74. The ‘Variation of Animals and Plants
under Domestication,’ vol. i. p. 214; vol. ii. p. 240.), the wonderful
development of the many races of animals and plants, which have been
kept merely for ornament. Fanciers always wish each character to be
somewhat increased; they do not admire a medium standard; they
certainly do not desire any great and abrupt change in the character of
their breeds; they admire solely what they are accustomed to, but they
ardently desire to see each characteristic feature a little more
developed.
The senses of man and of the lower animals seem to be so constituted
that brilliant colours and certain forms, as well as harmonious and
rhythmical sounds, give pleasure and are called beautiful; but why this
should be so we know not. It is certainly not true that there is in the
mind of man any universal standard of beauty with respect to the human
body. It is, however, possible that certain tastes may in the course of
time become inherited, though there is no evidence in favour of this
belief: and if so, each race would possess its own innate ideal
standard of beauty. It has been argued (75. Schaaffhausen, ‘Archiv. für
Anthropologie,’ 1866, s. 164.) that ugliness consists in an approach to
the structure of the lower animals, and no doubt this is partly true
with the more civilised nations, in which intellect is highly
appreciated; but this explanation will hardly apply to all forms of
ugliness. The men of each race prefer what they are accustomed to; they
cannot endure any great change; but they like variety, and admire each
characteristic carried to a moderate extreme. (76. Mr. Bain has
collected (‘Mental and Moral Science,’ 1868, pp. 304-314) about a dozen
more or less different theories of the idea of beauty; but none is
quite the same as that here given.) Men accustomed to a nearly oval
face, to straight and regular features, and to bright colours, admire,
as we Europeans know, these points when strongly developed. On the
other hand, men accustomed to a broad face, with high cheek-bones, a
depressed nose, and a black skin, admire these peculiarities when
strongly marked. No doubt characters of all kinds may be too much
developed for beauty. Hence a perfect beauty, which implies many
characters modified in a particular manner, will be in every race a
prodigy. As the great anatomist Bichat long ago said, if every one were
cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all
our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de’ Medici, we
should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and
as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain
characters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common
standard.
CHAPTER XX.
SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS OF MAN—continued.
On the effects of the continued selection of women according to a
different standard of beauty in each race—On the causes which interfere
with sexual selection in civilised and savage nations—Conditions
favourable to sexual selection during primeval times—On the manner of
action of sexual selection with mankind—On the women in savage tribes
having some power to choose their husbands—Absence of hair on the body,
and development of the beard—Colour of the skin—Summary.
We have seen in the last chapter that with all barbarous races
ornaments, dress, and external appearance are highly valued; and that
the men judge of the beauty of their women by widely different
standards. We must next inquire whether this preference and the
consequent selection during many generations of those women, which
appear to the men of each race the most attractive, has altered the
character either of the females alone, or of both sexes. With mammals
the general rule appears to be that characters of all kinds are
inherited equally by the males and females; we might therefore expect
that with mankind any characters gained by the females or by the males
through sexual selection would commonly be transferred to the offspring
of both sexes. If any change has thus been effected, it is almost
certain that the different races would be differently modified, as each
has its own standard of beauty.
With mankind, especially with savages, many causes interfere with the
action of sexual selection as far as the bodily frame is concerned.
Civilised men are largely attracted by the mental charms of women, by
their wealth, and especially by their social position; for men rarely
marry into a much lower rank. The men who succeed in obtaining the more
beautiful women will not have a better chance of leaving a long line of
descendants than other men with plainer wives, save the few who
bequeath their fortunes according to primogeniture. With respect to the
opposite form of selection, namely, of the more attractive men by the
women, although in civilised nations women have free or almost free
choice, which is not the case with barbarous races, yet their choice is
largely influenced by the social position and wealth of the men; and
the success of the latter in life depends much on their intellectual
powers and energy, or on the fruits of these same powers in their
forefathers. No excuse is needed for treating this subject in some
detail; for, as the German philosopher Schopenhauer remarks, “the final
aim of all love intrigues, be they comic or tragic, is really of more
importance than all other ends in human life. What it all turns upon is
nothing less than the composition of the next generation...It is not
the weal or woe of any one individual, but that of the human race to
come, which is here at stake.” (1. ‘Schopenhauer and Darwinism,’ in
‘Journal of Anthropology,’ Jan. 1871, p. 323.
There is, however, reason to believe that in certain civilised and
semi-civilised nations sexual selection has effected something in
modifying the bodily frame of some of the members. Many persons are
convinced, as it appears to me with justice, that our aristocracy,
including under this term all wealthy families in which primogeniture
has long prevailed, from having chosen during many generations from all
classes the more beautiful women as their wives, have become handsomer,
according to the European standard, than the middle classes; yet the
middle classes are placed under equally favourable conditions of life
for the perfect development of the body. Cook remarks that the
superiority in personal appearance “which is observable in the erees or
nobles in all the other islands (of the Pacific) is found in the
Sandwich Islands”; but this may be chiefly due to their better food and
manner of life.
The old traveller Chardin, in describing the Persians, says their
“blood is now highly refined by frequent intermixtures with the
Georgians and Circassians, two nations which surpass all the world in
personal beauty. There is hardly a man of rank in Persia who is not
born of a Georgian or Circassian mother.” He adds that they inherit
their beauty, “not from their ancestors, for without the above mixture,
the men of rank in Persia, who are descendants of the Tartars, would be
extremely ugly.” (2. These quotations are taken from Lawrence
(‘Lectures on Physiology,’ etc., 1822, p. 393), who attributes the
beauty of the upper classes in England to the men having long selected
the more beautiful women.) Here is a more curious case; the priestesses
who attended the temple of Venus Erycina at San-Giuliano in Sicily,
were selected for their beauty out of the whole of Greece; they were
not vestal virgins, and Quatrefages (3. ‘Anthropologie,’ ‘Revue des
Cours Scientifiques,’ Oct. 1868, p. 721.), who states the foregoing
fact, says that the women of San-Giuliano are now famous as the most
beautiful in the island, and are sought by artists as models. But it is
obvious that the evidence in all the above cases is doubtful.
The following case, though relating to savages, is well worth giving
for its curiosity. Mr. Winwood Reade informs me that the Jollofs, a
tribe of negroes on the west coast of Africa, “are remarkable for their
uniformly fine appearance.” A friend of his asked one of these men,
“How is it that every one whom I meet is so fine looking, not only your
men but your women?” The Jollof answered, “It is very easily explained:
it has always been our custom to pick out our worst-looking slaves and
to sell them.” It need hardly be added that with all savages, female
slaves serve as concubines. That this negro should have attributed,
whether rightly or wrongly, the fine appearance of his tribe to the
long-continued elimination of the ugly women is not so surprising as it
may at first appear; for I have elsewhere shewn (4. ‘Variation of
Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. i. p. 207.) that negroes
fully appreciate the importance of selection in the breeding of their
domestic animals, and I could give from Mr. Reade additional evidence
on this head.
THE CAUSES WHICH PREVENT OR CHECK THE ACTION OF SEXUAL SELECTION WITH
SAVAGES.
The chief causes are, first, so-called communal marriages or
promiscuous intercourse; secondly, the consequences of female
infanticide; thirdly, early betrothals; and lastly, the low estimation
in which women are held, as mere slaves. These four points must be
considered in some detail.
It is obvious that as long as the pairing of man, or of any other
animal, is left to mere chance, with no choice exerted by either sex,
there can be no sexual selection; and no effect will be produced on the
offspring by certain individuals having had an advantage over others in
their courtship. Now it is asserted that there exist at the present day
tribes which practise what Sir J. Lubbock by courtesy calls communal
marriages; that is, all the men and women in the tribe are husbands and
wives to one another. The licentiousness of many savages is no doubt
astonishing, but it seems to me that more evidence is requisite, before
we fully admit that their intercourse is in any case promiscuous.
Nevertheless all those who have most closely studied the subject (5.
Sir J. Lubbock, ‘The Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, chap. iii.
especially pp. 60-67. Mr. M’Lennan, in his extremely valuable work on
‘Primitive Marriage,’ 1865, p. 163, speaks of the union of the sexes
“in the earliest times as loose, transitory, and in some degree
promiscuous.” Mr. M’Lennan and Sir J. Lubbock have collected much
evidence on the extreme licentiousness of savages at the present time.
Mr. L.H. Morgan, in his interesting memoir of the classificatory system
of relationship. (‘Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences,’
vol. vii. Feb. 1868, p. 475), concludes that polygamy and all forms of
marriage during primeval times were essentially unknown. It appears
also, from Sir J. Lubbock’s work, that Bachofen likewise believes that
communal intercourse originally prevailed.), and whose judgment is
worth much more than mine, believe that communal marriage (this
expression being variously guarded) was the original and universal form
throughout the world, including therein the intermarriage of brothers
and sisters. The late Sir A. Smith, who had travelled widely in S.
Africa, and knew much about the habits of savages there and elsewhere,
expressed to me the strongest opinion that no race exists in which
woman is considered as the property of the community. I believe that
his judgment was largely determined by what is implied by the term
marriage. Throughout the following discussion I use the term in the
same sense as when naturalists speak of animals as monogamous, meaning
thereby that the male is accepted by or chooses a single female, and
lives with her either during the breeding-season or for the whole year,
keeping possession of her by the law of might; or, as when they speak
of a polygamous species, meaning that the male lives with several
females. This kind of marriage is all that concerns us here, as it
suffices for the work of sexual selection. But I know that some of the
writers above referred to imply by the term marriage a recognised right
protected by the tribe.
The indirect evidence in favour of the belief of the former prevalence
of communal marriages is strong, and rests chiefly on the terms of
relationship which are employed between the members of the same tribe,
implying a connection with the tribe, and not with either parent. But
the subject is too large and complex for even an abstract to be here
given, and I will confine myself to a few remarks. It is evident in the
case of such marriages, or where the marriage tie is very loose, that
the relationship of the child to its father cannot be known. But it
seems almost incredible that the relationship of the child to its
mother should ever be completely ignored, especially as the women in
most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time. Accordingly, in
many cases the lines of descent are traced through the mother alone, to
the exclusion of the father. But in other cases the terms employed
express a connection with the tribe alone, to the exclusion even of the
mother. It seems possible that the connection between the related
members of the same barbarous tribe, exposed to all sorts of danger,
might be so much more important, owing to the need of mutual protection
and aid, than that between the mother and her child, as to lead to the
sole use of terms expressive of the former relationships; but Mr.
Morgan is convinced that this view is by no means sufficient.
The terms of relationship used in different parts of the world may be
divided, according to the author just quoted, into two great classes,
the classificatory and descriptive, the latter being employed by us. It
is the classificatory system which so strongly leads to the belief that
communal and other extremely loose forms of marriage were originally
universal. But as far as I can see, there is no necessity on this
ground for believing in absolutely promiscuous intercourse; and I am
glad to find that this is Sir J. Lubbock’s view. Men and women, like
many of the lower animals, might formerly have entered into strict
though temporary unions for each birth, and in this case nearly as much
confusion would have arisen in the terms of relationship as in the case
of promiscuous intercourse. As far as sexual selection is concerned,
all that is required is that choice should be exerted before the
parents unite, and it signifies little whether the unions last for life
or only for a season.
Besides the evidence derived from the terms of relationship, other
lines of reasoning indicate the former wide prevalence of communal
marriage. Sir J. Lubbock accounts for the strange and widely-extended
habit of exogamy—that is, the men of one tribe taking wives from a
distinct tribe,—by communism having been the original form of
intercourse; so that a man never obtained a wife for himself unless he
captured her from a neighbouring and hostile tribe, and then she would
naturally have become his sole and valuable property. Thus the practice
of capturing wives might have arisen; and from the honour so gained it
might ultimately have become the universal habit. According to Sir J.
Lubbock (6. ‘Address to British Association On the Social and Religious
Condition of the Lower Races of Man,’ 1870, p. 20.), we can also thus
understand “the necessity of expiation for marriage as an infringement
of tribal rites, since according to old ideas, a man had no right to
appropriate to himself that which belonged to the whole tribe.” Sir J.
Lubbock further gives a curious body of facts shewing that in old times
high honour was bestowed on women who were utterly licentious; and
this, as he explains, is intelligible, if we admit that promiscuous
intercourse was the aboriginal, and therefore long revered custom of
the tribe. (7. ‘Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, p. 86. In the several
works above quoted, there will be found copious evidence on
relationship through the females alone, or with the tribe alone.)
Although the manner of development of the marriage tie is an obscure
subject, as we may infer from the divergent opinions on several points
between the three authors who have studied it most closely, namely, Mr.
Morgan, Mr. M’Lennan, and Sir J. Lubbock, yet from the foregoing and
several other lines of evidence it seems probable (8. Mr. C. Staniland
Wake argues strongly (‘Anthropologia,’ March, 1874, p. 197) against the
views held by these three writers on the former prevalence of almost
promiscuous intercourse; and he thinks that the classificatory system
of relationship can be otherwise explained.) that the habit of
marriage, in any strict sense of the word, has been gradually
developed; and that almost promiscuous or very loose intercourse was
once extremely common throughout the world. Nevertheless, from the
strength of the feeling of jealousy all through the animal kingdom, as
well as from the analogy of the lower animals, more particularly of
those which come nearest to man, I cannot believe that absolutely
promiscuous intercourse prevailed in times past, shortly before man
attained to his present rank in the zoological scale. Man, as I have
attempted to shew, is certainly descended from some ape-like creature.
With the existing Quadrumana, as far as their habits are known, the
males of some species are monogamous, but live during only a part of
the year with the females: of this the orang seems to afford an
instance. Several kinds, for example some of the Indian and American
monkeys, are strictly monogamous, and associate all the year round with
their wives. Others are polygamous, for example the gorilla and several
American species, and each family lives separate. Even when this
occurs, the families inhabiting the same district are probably somewhat
social; the chimpanzee, for instance, is occasionally met with in large
bands. Again, other species are polygamous, but several males, each
with his own females, live associated in a body, as with several
species of baboons. (9. Brehm (‘Thierleben,’ B. i. p. 77) says
Cynocephalus hamadryas lives in great troops containing twice as many
adult females as adult males. See Rengger on American polygamous
species, and Owen (‘Anatomy of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 746) on
American monogamous species. Other references might be added.) We may
indeed conclude from what we know of the jealousy of all male
quadrupeds, armed, as many of them are, with special weapons for
battling with their rivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a state of
nature is extremely improbable. The pairing may not last for life, but
only for each birth; yet if the males which are the strongest and best
able to defend or otherwise assist their females and young, were to
select the more attractive females, this would suffice for sexual
selection.
Therefore, looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging
from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view
is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single
wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against
all other men. Or he may not have been a social animal, and yet have
lived with several wives, like the gorilla; for all the natives “agree
that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows
up, a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing
and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the
community.” (10. Dr. Savage, in ‘Boston Journal of Natural History,’
vol. v. 1845-47, p. 423.) The younger males, being thus expelled and
wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner,
prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the same family.
Although savages are now extremely licentious, and although communal
marriages may formerly have largely prevailed, yet many tribes practise
some form of marriage, but of a far more lax nature than that of
civilised nations. Polygamy, as just stated, is almost universally
followed by the leading men in every tribe. Nevertheless there are
tribes, standing almost at the bottom of the scale, which are strictly
monogamous. This is the case with the Veddahs of Ceylon: they have a
saying, according to Sir J. Lubbock (11. ‘Prehistoric Times,’ 1869, p.
424.), “that death alone can separate husband and wife.” An intelligent
Kandyan chief, of course a polygamist, “was perfectly scandalised at
the utter barbarism of living with only one wife, and never parting
until separated by death.” It was, he said, “just like the Wanderoo
monkeys.” Whether savages who now enter into some form of marriage,
either polygamous or monogamous, have retained this habit from primeval
times, or whether they have returned to some form of marriage, after
passing through a stage of promiscuous intercourse, I will not pretend
to conjecture.
INFANTICIDE.
This practice is now very common throughout the world, and there is
reason to believe that it prevailed much more extensively during former
times. (12. Mr. M’Lennan, ‘Primitive Marriage,’ 1865. See especially on
exogamy and infanticide, pp. 130, 138, 165.) Barbarians find it
difficult to support themselves and their children, and it is a simple
plan to kill their infants. In South America some tribes, according to
Azara, formerly destroyed so many infants of both sexes that they were
on the point of extinction. In the Polynesian Islands women have been
known to kill from four or five, to even ten of their children; and
Ellis could not find a single woman who had not killed at least one. In
a village on the eastern frontier of India Colonel MacCulloch found not
a single female child. Wherever infanticide (13. Dr. Gerland (‘Ueber
das Aussterben der Naturvölker,’ 1868) has collected much information
on infanticide, see especially ss. 27, 51, 54. Azara (‘Voyages,’ etc.,
tom. ii. pp. 94, 116) enters in detail on the motives. See also
M’Lennan (ibid. p. 139) for cases in India. In the former reprints of
the 2nd edition of this book an incorrect quotation from Sir G. Grey
was unfortunately given in the above passage and has now been removed
from the text.) prevails the struggle for existence will be in so far
less severe, and all the members of the tribe will have an almost
equally good chance of rearing their few surviving children. In most
cases a larger number of female than of male infants are destroyed, for
it is obvious that the latter are of more value to the tribe, as they
will, when grown up, aid in defending it, and can support themselves.
But the trouble experienced by the women in rearing children, their
consequent loss of beauty, the higher estimation set on them when few,
and their happier fate, are assigned by the women themselves, and by
various observers, as additional motives for infanticide.
When, owing to female infanticide, the women of a tribe were few, the
habit of capturing wives from neighbouring tribes would naturally
arise. Sir J. Lubbock, however, as we have seen, attributes the
practice in chief part to the former existence of communal marriage,
and to the men having consequently captured women from other tribes to
hold as their sole property. Additional causes might be assigned, such
as the communities being very small, in which case, marriageable women
would often be deficient. That the habit was most extensively practised
during former times, even by the ancestors of civilised nations, is
clearly shewn by the preservation of many curious customs and
ceremonies, of which Mr. M’Lennan has given an interesting account. In
our own marriages the “best man” seems originally to have been the
chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of capture. Now as long as
men habitually procured their wives through violence and craft, they
would have been glad to seize on any woman, and would not have selected
the more attractive ones. But as soon as the practice of procuring
wives from a distinct tribe was effected through barter, as now occurs
in many places, the more attractive women would generally have been
purchased. The incessant crossing, however, between tribe and tribe,
which necessarily follows from any form of this habit, would tend to
keep all the people inhabiting the same country nearly uniform in
character; and this would interfere with the power of sexual selection
in differentiating the tribes.
The scarcity of women, consequent on female infanticide, leads, also,
to another practice, that of polyandry, still common in several parts
of the world, and which formerly, as Mr. M’Lennan believes, prevailed
almost universally: but this latter conclusion is doubted by Mr. Morgan
and Sir J. Lubbock. (14. ‘Primitive Marriage,’ p. 208; Sir J. Lubbock,
‘Origin of Civilisation,’ p. 100. See also Mr. Morgan, loc. cit., on
the former prevalence of polyandry.) Whenever two or more men are
compelled to marry one woman, it is certain that all the women of the
tribe will get married, and there will be no selection by the men of
the more attractive women. But under these circumstances the women no
doubt will have the power of choice, and will prefer the more
attractive men. Azara, for instance, describes how carefully a Guana
woman bargains for all sorts of privileges, before accepting some one
or more husbands; and the men in consequence take unusual care of their
personal appearance. So amongst the Todas of India, who practise
polyandry, the girls can accept or refuse any man. (15. Azara,
‘Voyages,’ etc., tom. ii. pp. 92-95; Colonel Marshall, ‘Amongst the
Todas,’ p. 212.) A very ugly man in these cases would perhaps
altogether fail in getting a wife, or get one later in life; but the
handsomer men, although more successful in obtaining wives, would not,
as far as we can see, leave more offspring to inherit their beauty than
the less handsome husbands of the same women.
EARLY BETROTHALS AND SLAVERY OF WOMEN.
With many savages it is the custom to betroth the females whilst mere
infants; and this would effectually prevent preference being exerted on
either side according to personal appearance. But it would not prevent
the more attractive women from being afterwards stolen or taken by
force from their husbands by the more powerful men; and this often
happens in Australia, America, and elsewhere. The same consequences
with reference to sexual selection would to a certain extent follow,
when women are valued almost solely as slaves or beasts of burden, as
is the case with many savages. The men, however, at all times would
prefer the handsomest slaves according to their standard of beauty.
We thus see that several customs prevail with savages which must
greatly interfere with, or completely stop, the action of sexual
selection. On the other hand, the conditions of life to which savages
are exposed, and some of their habits, are favourable to natural
selection; and this comes into play at the same time with sexual
selection. Savages are known to suffer severely from recurrent famines;
they do not increase their food by artificial means; they rarely
refrain from marriage (16. Burchell says (‘Travels in S. Africa,’ vol.
ii. 1824, p. 58), that among the wild nations of Southern Africa,
neither men nor women ever pass their lives in a state of celibacy.
Azara (‘Voyages dans l’Amérique Merid.’ tom. ii. 1809, p. 21) makes
precisely the same remark in regard to the wild Indians of South
America.), and generally marry whilst young. Consequently they must be
subjected to occasional hard struggles for existence, and the favoured
individuals will alone survive.