SELECTION IN MAN. 395 



Geneva. Each of them is on a frontier, each is a singularly 

 favourable specimen of a city, and is of little service for our 

 purpose. Both Basel and Geneva have almost certainly a 

 more blond population than that which surrounds them, 

 whether Swiss, French, or German. 



In the West of England, according to my own published 

 observations on 3630 adults, mostly hospital patients, of 

 whom 2486 were natives of towns, and 1144 of rural 

 districts, the proportion of dark hair in towns was to that 

 in the country, reckoning by the index of nigrescence, as 

 31 to 35 ; but that of dark eyes was as 58 to 49. We have 

 here nearly the same phenomena as those we found to be 

 so common in Germany, Austria, and Belgium. 



In the British Isles generally, the drift of my own very 

 extensive local observations (in which the place of birth 

 however was never actually ascertained) was to show that 

 in large towns, especially those with an old settled popula- 

 tion, the darker colours both of hair and eyes were more 

 prevalent than in the surrounding districts. This applied 

 to the greater part of Britain, but in parts of the west where 

 the native population is generally dark-haired, e.g., Shrews- 

 bury and Truro, the proportions may be reversed. The 

 British military statistics, so far as investigated, viz., to the 

 number of 13,800 deserters, yield results similar, but not 

 strongly marked. Thus London, Birmingham, Bristol, 

 Newcastle, Brighton, and Portsmouth give an index of 

 nigrescence of 8, against one of 4*9 for the rest of England ; 

 the proportion of dark eyes for the towns named being 39*5 

 per cent., but for the rest of England, 387. Edinburgh 

 and Glasgow give together an index of 1 1 '8, the rest of 

 Scotland of 0*3 only, the percentages of dark eyes being 29 

 and 27*8 ; and Belfast and Dublin give an index of 187 

 against 15*2 in Ulster and Leinster, with percentages of 

 dark eyes amounting to 32 and 28*4. The figures might 

 be dissected with advantage, but to do so would lengthen 

 this paper inordinately. 



Livi's statistics as to this point are perhaps the most 

 interesting, and have the advantage of beino- founded on 

 the physical characters of adolescents (i.e., conscripts). He 



