i6S SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



There is little here to guide us. though the somewhat 

 unfavourable aspect of column 5 is a little suspicious. It 

 may be noted, by the way, that a general high level of 

 stature does not seem to entail a high proportion of 

 phthisical disease, though I have little doubt that in France, 

 as with us, tall young persons suffer more therefrom than 

 short ones in the same community. Knox, who must 

 already have grasped the idea of modification of type by 

 selection, said long ago that the South African Boers were 

 taller than the natives of Holland because amonorthe former 

 the taller youths were not so liable to be cut down by 

 phthisis. 



To return — Roberts and Rawson. in their anthropometric 

 report to the British Association, compared the com- 

 plexional characters of various periods of life, from infancy 

 to extreme old age. The gradual deepening of colour, of 

 hair colour especially, which concurs in most individuals 

 with the advance of years, the earlier age at which greyness 

 is perceptible in the dark haired, and some considerations of 

 minor importance, take away much of the value of Roberts 

 and Rawson's table, carefully digested and widely based 

 though it be. Pi'iyn'd facie, however, it may be claimed as 

 evidence that the changes in colour which do occur are 

 due to development rather than to selection by death. 



The possible effect of conjugal selection has been tested 

 by myself, but very insufficiently. ]\Iy observations 

 tended to show that, among the working classes of Bristol, 

 women with red and women with black hair did not marry 

 in quite so large a proportion as those with hair of other 

 colours. If this were to continue throuoh several orenera- 



o o 



tions, we should have a diminution of the two most abun- 

 dant kinds of hair-pigment (Sorby), and a general prevalence 

 of dull shades of brown. De Lapouge"- quotes De Candolle 

 to the following effect: 158 brown-eyed men espoused 52 

 per cent, of women of like colour with themselves, and 48 



^ Races of Britain, p. 226. 



- Les Sekctiotis Sociales, par G. Vacher de Lapouge, p. 202, Paris, 

 18S9. 



