844 Maj.-Gen. J. Briggs on the Aboriginal Tribes of India. 



ing literally the aborigines of the Malayan or Malacca pe- 

 ninsula. 



The result of all my inquiries on the several aboriginal 

 tribes of India, leads me to the following conclusions : — First, 

 that they are of a stock essentially differing, in almost every 

 character of a race, from the Caucasian Hindu. That the 

 whole have a common origin ; and though they may have 

 come, as they probably did at different times, both from the 

 east and from the north, they are all derived from the same 

 great Tartar horde, and undoubtedly inhabited India ante- 

 rior to the invasion of that ancient and venerable people the 

 Hindus. The latter, proceeding eastward from Persia, ex- 

 tended over the barbarous nations of India, and introduced 

 their laws, their civil institutions, and their language, at 

 the same time enslaving the aborigines wherever they settled. 

 The exclusive rules of caste forbade the intermixture of the two 

 races ; and this circumstance alone suffices to account for the 

 separation having continued to exist for so lengthened a period. 



While the Hindu branch of the Caucasian family proceeded 

 eastward, other portions of the same race spread themselves 

 westward, and became the progenitors of the present Euro- 

 pean race. They subjected those they subdued to the yoke of 

 slavery, as serfs of the soil ; they brought with them the San- 

 scrit or Indo- Germanic tongue ; and to them Europe owes 

 the introduction of that system of municipal administration 

 which is the only true foundation of free institutions and 

 constitutional government. 



Examples of Exuviation^ or the Change of the Integuments of 

 Animals in the Crustacean Tribes. By Sir JoHlf Graham 

 Dalyell, Bart., author of the Bare and Bemarkable 

 Animals of Scotland. 



All animals are invested by a skin — an external covering 

 or integument of various quality. In general the skin simply 

 expands with the growth of the subject which it invests ; 

 but where the integument is not susceptible of such enlarge- 

 ment nature has provided effectual substitutes in its place. 



