EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SPECIES 187 



average they are about five feet five or six inches in 

 height, the hair is dark and wavy, but it is not the pencil- 

 like structure of the Mongol. The complexion is pale, 

 the skull is rounder, and the eyes are usually brown in 

 color. These peoples agree also in their volatile tem- 

 perament and vivacious manner and are thus markedly 

 different from the more stolid northerners. To this 

 minor branch of the Caucasian stock belong the Welsh, 

 most of the French, South Germans and Swiss, Rus- 

 sians and Poles, Armenians, eastern Persians, and finally 

 some of the inhabitants of Polynesia. The last, it is 

 true, form a well-marked group of darker-skinned and 

 taller races, but in spite of the admixture of these and 

 other unusual features, we can still discern the bodily 

 characters that supplement their traditions, telling of 

 an Asian origin, in demonstrating their common ances- 

 try with round-headed Persians and middle Europeans. 

 Below the zone of middle Europe and Asia is another 

 broad region inhabited by the '^ Mediterranean ^' type 

 of Caucasian. The Spaniard, Italian, Greek, and Arab 

 are sufficiently familiar to illustrate the distinctive 

 qualities of this subdivision. These people have the 

 smaller stature, dark hair, dark eyes, and paler skin 

 of the middle Europeans, but the skull is of the long 

 instead of the rounded type. A well-marked sub- 

 ordinate group is formed by the so-called Semitic 

 peoples, such as the Arabs and their Hebrew relatives. 

 The Berbers and other North African races possess a 

 darker skin probably because of the admixture of 

 Ethiopian stock, and they, too, are so well character- 

 ized that they form a clearly marked outlying group 

 as the so-called Hamites. Passing over into Asia we 



