The Descent of Man

naked, like the inferior surfaces of all four extremities
in most of the lower animals. As this
can hardly be an accidental coincidence, the
woolly covering of the foetus probably represents
the first permanent coat of hair in those
mammals which are born hairy. Three or four
cases have been recorded of persons born with
their whole bodies and faces thickly covered
with fine long hairs; and this strange condition
is strongly inherited, and is correlated with an
abnormal condition of the teeth. (41. See my
'Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,'
vol. ii. p. 327. Prof. Alex. Brandt has
recently sent me an additional case of a father
and son, born in Russia, with these peculiarities.
I have received drawings of both from Paris.)
Prof. Alex. Brandt informs me that he has
compared the hair from the face of a man thus
characterised, aged thirty-five, with the lanugo
of a foetus, and finds it quite similar in texture;
therefore, as he remarks, the case may be attributed
to an arrest of development in the hair,