H. Drinkwater 325 



there any blood relationship between this American family and either 

 of the English families ? The cases observed by Farabee were ap- 

 parently identical as regards the anatomical and hereditary features 

 with those described in my first paper in August 1907. I was not 

 aware of Farabue's work until my own investigations were nearly 

 completed, and there was not time to decide the question of relation- 

 ship before presenting my paper to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 

 His reply to my enquiries did not come for several months afterwards, 

 for he happened to be in some out-of-the-way part of Peru engaged on 

 a scientific expedition. However, it was found that no surname was 

 common to the two families ; nor was it possible to make my chart fit 

 in with his : so that, assuming that there had been a common ancestor 

 of the Brachydactylous type (and this hardly admits of doubt), he or 

 she must have lived pi'ior to the earliest member now traceable in 

 either of the two families. A study of Farabee's account made me 

 think it likely that his family had descended from "an abnormal 

 member of the English family, four generations back, who had migrated 

 to America, but of whom no tidings have since been received by his 

 relatives in this country," but as this man's name does not occur in 

 Farabee's family, he was obviously not the connecting link. So far, 

 therefore, I have not been able to prove any blood relationship as 

 existing either between my two families or between the first of these 

 and Farabee's. 



There still remains the question whether the second family (about 

 to be described in the present communication) is related to Farabee's. 

 Farabee informed me that the name amongst his people which most 

 nearly approached any name in the English family was Hyde. Now 

 the man marked 2 in the chart on page 327 was named Benjamin 

 Hyde. In November of 1913 when the chart was almost complete, 

 I forwarded Dr Farabee a copy of the earlier generations, numbering 

 each individual 1, 2, 3 etc. My letter was a long time in reaching him, 

 for again he was away from home on another scientific expedition — this 

 time in Brazil. I asked if there was a Benjamin Hyde in the American 

 family ? At the end of May I received a letter from him from Barbados, 

 dated May 16th, 1914, in which he says: 



" Your letters of November 26th, 1913, and February 9th, 1914, have just reached 

 me. For the past ten mouths I have been in the interior of Northern Brazil and 

 Southern British Guiana, out of touch with the rest of the world.... FoM haee 

 settled the iphole question. 2 is Benjamin Hyde. His mother had short fingers, and 

 she was the only one of her family who had. She had eleven children, but I was 



