458 VARIETIES OF MANKIND, 



brutes are always from the darker to the lighter shades., * by 

 occasional instances of individual blacks turning permanently 

 white, whereas individurJ whites have rarely been known to turn 

 black, and by the asserted probability of the most ancient 

 people of the earth, from whom Europeans must be descended, 

 having been genuine Ethiopians or Negroes. f 



* ' Animals living in a free and natural state are subject to few deviations 

 from their specific character ; but nature is less uniform in its operations, when 

 influenced by culture. Considerable varieties are produced under such cir 

 cumstances ; of which the most frequent are changes in the colour. 



' These changes arc always, I believe, from the dark to the lighter tints ; and 

 the alteration very gradual in certain species, requiring in the canary-bird 

 several generations ; while in the crow, mouse, &c*. it is completed in one. 

 But this change is not always to white, though still approaching nearer to it in 

 the young than in the parent ; being sometimes to dun, at others to spotted, of 

 all the various shades between the two extremes. This alteration in colour 

 being constantly from dark to lighter, may we not reasonably infer, that iii all 

 animals subject to such variation, the darkest of the species should be reckoned 

 nearest to the original ; and that where there are specimens of a particular 

 kind, entirely black, the whole have been originally black ? Without this sup- 

 position it will be impossible, on the principle I have stated, to account for in- 

 dividuals of any class being black. Every such variety may be considered as 

 arising in the cultivated state of animals.' Hunter, On the colour of the pig- 

 mcntum nigrum of the eye. 1. c. p. 243. 

 f Dr. Prichard. 1. c. Chap. vii. viii. ix. 

 I shall take this opportunity of noticing monsters. 



Mr. Lawrence has collected many remarkable and well authenticated in- 

 stances of monsters, in a paper published in the fourth volume of the Medico- 

 Chirurgical Transactions. To this I refer for examples. He divides mon- 

 strosity into unnatural formation, unusual position of certain organs, defi- 

 ciency, redundancy, and a mixture of these. 



Monstrous formation is a frequent cause of miscarriage. Autenreith ob- 

 serves, " that he found three abortions monstrous out of nineteen whose parts 

 could be distinguished ; that Wrisberg met with two among five ; and Ruysch 

 two in twelve : altogether seven to twenty-nine." Sommerring states that most 

 monstrous embryos are of the male sex. 



When any very considerable deviation of structure exists, there are usually 

 others of less magnitude. A sound offspring is very frequently born at the 



