With respect to the beard, if we turn to our best guide, namely the Quadrumana, we find beards equally well developed in both sexes of many species, but in others, either confined to the males, or more developed in them than in the females. From this fact, and from the curious arrangement, as well as the bright colours, of the hair about the heads of many monkeys, it is highly probable, as before explained, that the males first acquired their beards as an ornament through sexual selection, transmitting them in most cases, in an equal or nearly equal degree, to their offspring of both sexes. We know from Eschricht[469] that with mankind, the female as well as the male fœtus is furnished with much hair on the face, especially round the mouth; and this indicates that we are descended from a progenitor, of which both sexes were bearded. It appears therefore at first sight probable that man has retained his beard from a very early period, whilst woman lost her beard at the same time when her body became almost completely divested of hair. Even the colour of the beard with mankind seems to have been inherited from an ape-like progenitor; for when there is any difference in tint between the hair of the head and the beard, the latter is lighter coloured in all monkeys and in man. There is less improbability in the men of the bearded races having retained their beards from primordial times, than in the case of the hair on the body; for with those Quadrumana, in which the male has a larger beard than that of the female, it is fully developed only at maturity, and the later stages of development may have been exclusively transmitted to mankind. We should then see what is actually the case, namely, our male children, before they arrive at maturity, as destitute of beards as are our female children. On the other hand the great variability of the beard within the limits of the same race and in different races indicates that reversion has come into action. However this may be, we must not overlook the part which sexual selection may have played even during later times; for we know that with savages, the men of the beardless races take infinite pains in eradicating every hair from their faces, as something odious, whilst the men of the bearded races feel the greatest pride in their beards. The women, no doubt, participate in these feelings, and if so sexual selection can hardly have failed to have effected something in the course of later times.[470]