In more modern times the demand has created a distinct branch of trade, and various agencies are at work to procure the needful supply. Black hair comes principally from Brittany and the South of France, where it is collected by dealers who visit the principal fairs, and barter ribbons, kerchiefs, and such matters, for the tresses of the Breton lasses. From a superstitious feeling, most of them are averse to take money for their hair, and consider it unlucky to do so. As it is an invariable custom for the females to wear a close cap from childhood, the loss of their magnificent _chignons_ is thereby concealed. Germany supplies the market, as of old, with light and flaxen hair, and this branch of trade is chiefly carried on by a Dutch company. The London hair-dressers alone, purchase some five tons annually. The annual consumption in Great Britain of foreign human hair is assumed to be about six tons. Hair which curls naturally, and is of good colour and very fine, commands the highest price; and certain shades, which are comparatively rare, are much sought for. Such choice lots are packed up in skins, to exclude the air, and exported to the best markets. Fashion, however, has much to do in regulating the price. Bryant, the American poet, whose Pegasus seems to have taken fright at the gaudeous dresses of the beauties in the Broadway, thus discourses of hair with a poet’s license: “And thick about those lovely temples lie Locks that the lucky Vignardonne has curled. Thrice happy man! whose trade it is to buy, And bake, and braid those love-knots of the world; Who curls of every glossy colour keepest, And sellest, it is said, the blackest cheapest. And well thou mayst--for Italy’s brown maids Send the dark locks with which their brows are dressed, And Gascon lasses, from their jetty braids, Crop half, to buy a riband for the rest; And the fresh Norman girls their tresses spare, And the Dutch damsel keeps her flaxen hair. Then, henceforth, let no maid nor matron grieve, To see her locks of an unlovely hue, Grizzled or thin, for liberal art shall give Such piles of curls as nature never knew. Eve, with her veil of tresses, at the sight Had blushed, outdone, and owned herself a fright.”