396 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



finds that fair hair is more uncommon and dark eyes are 

 more frequent among the inhabitants of cities and their 

 immediate vicinity than among those of the surrounding- 

 country. And this applies more or less to the whole of 

 Italy, and cannot, therefore, apparently be accounted for 

 by the immigration of the dark type from southern Italy 

 into the northern cities, where the blond type is more 

 common than in the south. 



Thus I find in the northern and more blond region 

 (Piedmont, Lombardo-Venetia, Liguria) 17 urban popula- 

 tions which, on a balance of eyes and hair, are darker than 

 the rural populations around ; 3 which are lighter, Brescia, 

 Como, Rovigo ; and r, Verona, where the conditions are 

 equal. In the central provinces, from Emilia to Campania 

 inclusive, 19 cities are darker, 9 are lighter, and 2 are equal. 

 In the south, including Apulia, etc., and the islands, where 

 blonds form a very small minority, 1 1 cities are darker and 

 5 lighter. Thus in the north the rule obtains in 82 per 

 cent, in the centre in 63, in the south in 69. The greater 

 darkness appears to affect the eyes and the hair with 

 something like equality, though not uniformly. 



Livi, finding that the blond complexion is, with identity 

 or supposed identity of race, more prevalent in the poverty- 

 stricken mountainous districts than in the plains, and putting 

 that fact into connection with its less prevalence in the 

 cities, is disposed to consider it as connected with poor 

 food and hard labour, which may retard development of 

 pigment ; in fact, he thinks the deposition of pigment to be 

 an index of force and of development. Of course this is as 

 yet unproven, and there is much to be said for and against 

 the doctrine. But it does seem that we have evidence 

 enough to show that in a great part of Europe the citizens 

 are darker than the peasantry. This may be due to some 

 direct influence of urban life, such as deficient oxygenation 

 of the blood in children, but that seems very improbable. 

 More probably it is due either to some kind of social 

 selection such as Ammon and De Lapouge have studied, 

 or else to the selection of the fittest for town life by the 

 destructive agency of conditions more unfavourable to the 



