26 HEREDITY OF SKIN COLOR IN NEGRO-WHITE CROSSES. 



instructive to consider the various matings arranged in order of fre- 

 quency (table 27). 



Table 27. Relative frequency of matings of persons with various numbers of factors 



in skin color. 



As will be seen by an inspection of table 27, the commonest 

 matings are between persons of the same shade of light to medium 

 color and then between a white man and a light-, medium-, or dark- 

 colored woman. Matings that involve dark-colored males come at the 

 end of the list, partly because only a relatively small part of the whole 

 population is black. However, only one father in table 27 is a full- 

 blooded negro, but 6 mothers are. Only 8 fathers are dark-colored as 

 opposed to 19 dark mothers. It would seem, then, that in Bermuda and 

 Jamaica dark males have a smaller chance, in proportion to their 

 numbers, of becoming husbands of light-colored women than light 

 males have, and probably a smaller chance of becoming fathers, and 

 this selection against dark males must have a real effect in causing the 

 hybrids to become, in successive generations, lighter. The black males 

 marry dark females, but our table does not show this fact, because we 

 studied only the hybrid portion of the population. At the State Hos- 

 pital at Columbia, South Carolina, Dr. Babcock and I questioned a 

 particularly black negro: "Do you like better dark or light-colored 

 girls?" He replied: "About my own complexion, sah." 



The greater discrimination exercised by the woman makes it inter- 

 esting to tabulate relative frequency of their choices, and this is shown 

 in table 28. 



Table 28. Different kinds of matings made by females in order of frequency. 



No. of skin-color factors in female o o o o o 



No. of skin-color factors in male I 2 o 3 4 



Frequency of combination 8 6 3 o 



No. of skin-color factors in female 1 1 I I 1 



No. of skin-color factors in male 1 o 2 3 4 



Frequency of combination 26 24 9 2 1 



No. of skin-color factors in female 2 2 2 2 2 



No. of skin-color factors in male 2 o 1 3 4 



Frequency of combination 22 12 8 2 o 



No. of skin-color factors in female 3 3 3 3 3 



No. of skin-color factors in male o 2 3 1 4 



Frequency of combination 10 5 4 o o 



No. of skin-color factors in female 4 4 4 4 4 



No. of skin-color factors in male o 1234 



Frequency of combination 4 2 o o 



