272 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



inductions upon them. The whiteness of animals inhabiting 

 the northern regions, whether perennial or seasonal, is a very 

 simple case of adaptive colouring, first demonstrated by Dr. A. 

 Russell Wallace and now obvious to the merest tyro in biology. 

 Who will assert that blondness of hair in any way favours a 

 race in a northern habitat ? Does Prof. Ridgeway mean to 

 assert that in winter our ancestors pursued game or eluded 

 their foes in a state of nudity ? If so, their capacity for 

 endurance must have aroused the amazed envy of neighbouring 

 Mongoloids, who (poor fellows!) probably then, as now, pro- 

 tected themselves from the wintry cold by robes of skins. But 

 apart from the Laps and Esquimaux, the fact that other races 

 living in similar climatic conditions in North Asia, North 

 America, and Patagonia have never developed any tendency to 

 blondness sufficiently disposes of this bizarre suggestion. Nor 

 does the case of the fair-haired Berbers in the Atlas or of the 

 Amorites in the Syrian Mountains in any way eke out the 

 meagreness of the argument. Where we find islets of blond- 

 haired people living in similar climatic conditions, but separated 

 by broad channels of melanochroids from the great mass of 

 people of the former type, the obvious cause which suggests 

 itself is that they are the remnants of colonies which, with the 

 cessation of the stream of immigration, have failed to maintain 

 themselves in the plains against the surrounding melanochroic 

 population. The facts of the Arctic-Alpine flora furnish an 

 analogy — not, however, to be pushed too far. Two causes for 

 this failure suggest themselves. If the Mendelian law applies 

 to the human race — and far be it from me to express an opinion 

 on this causa teterrima belli — a probable recessiveness of blond 

 hair and dominance of black would account for the phenomenon. 

 But it seems more likely that the fair races succumbed to 

 zymotic diseases in the sub-tropical climate of the lowlands — 

 diseases to which their autochthonous inhabitants would be 

 largely immune. The examples of the Himalayas, of the Andes, 

 and of a hundred other mountain ranges inhabited by races as 

 dark-haired as those in the neighbouring plains sufficiently 

 dispose of the supposed effect of altitude on blondness. In 

 Scotland, as a matter of fact, the pigmentation survey shows 

 blondness to be predominant in the valleys and dark hair in 

 the mountains. 



For a similar reason the Professor's theory regarding the 



