ON SELECTION IN MAN. 



MY last article dealt with processes, of human selection 

 dependent on or connected with differences of 

 colour : in the present one I propose briefly to discuss 

 similar processes connected with differences of headform, 

 and especially with dolichokephaly and brachykephaly. 

 Colour yields the most conspicuous and in some respects, 

 perhaps, even the most important of the signs of difference 

 between varieties of mankind ; but diversities of headform 

 are generally believed to be more permanent, though this 

 has never been absolutely proved. 



The starting-point for investigations of this subject may 

 be said to have been given by Durand de Gros ; though, 

 when he affirmed that in the Rouergue the heads of towns- 

 folk were longer than those of peasants, he did not at first 

 divine the cause of this phenomenon, but ascribed it to the 

 operation of "media," of some subtle influence of environ- 

 ment. At a later period, indeed, he began to see the 

 relevance of the principle of selection ; but it was De 

 Lapouge who first saw its pre-eminent importance, and 

 who applied it generally, not only to urban and rural 

 populations, but to the different strata of society and periods 

 of history. Working in the south of France, with Mont- 

 pelier for his centre, he showed that the modern population 

 of that town, formerly much longer-headed than the pea- 

 santry of the Herault, was in the way of losing this char- 

 acteristic ; also that the Languedocian nobility of the six- 

 teenth to the eighteenth century had been dolichokephalic 

 in the midst of a short -headed peasantry ; and that a 

 similar difference prevailed in the eighteenth century be- 

 tween the upper and the lower class of citizens in Mont- 

 pelier. Thus — 



Montpelier Montp. 18th Century. Peasants Seigneurs 

 at present. Upper Lower at present. 17th and 18th 



Class. Class. Century. 



Mean kephalic index 



(relative head-breadth)- 81 75 78 82 76^ 



