38 A Contribution to the Anthropology of Wiltshire. 



The prevailing form of head is distinctly long and narrow, more 

 so than in most parts of Britain, though not so long either in 

 measure or in proportion as in the Scottish Highlanders. There 

 are some other districts, as the eastern Border and West Somerset, 

 which yield about the same index of latitude : still, the form is 

 somewhat remarkable. If we make the usual allowance of 2 

 degrees, which in similar heads I believe to be correct, we shall 

 find that the mean Wiltshire skull would be quite within the 

 limits of dolichokephaly, and closely alike in this respect to that 

 of both the Saxon invader and the Romano-British serf or villager. 



The absence of brachykephals is almost complete : making the 

 usual allowance for the integuments, we have only one certain, 

 though there may be one or two more that would just overpass the 

 line of 80. Most of the twenty-three extreme dolichokephals, in 

 accordance with Ammon's observations, are either very fair or 

 quite dark ; and the union of tall stature, light eyes, and very long 

 head is present in five cases, which is rather oftener than it should 

 be unless there were some atavistic tendency to the reproduction 

 of the Saxon type. I think the acmonoid type of Sergi, with 

 sharpish prominence of the upper occiput, belongs rather to the 

 dark than the blonde men, the latter having the occiput rounded 

 though prominent, as a rule : in both the vertical aspect is elliptic 

 or oval, with few exceptions. 



By comparing the mean measurements of these sixty Wiltshire 

 heads with those of thirty Englishmen, all distinguished for intel- 

 lectual ability, we light upon two or three interesting points. The 

 kephalic index is higher in the latter series by about half a degree. 

 This might have been expected, as the thirty belonged by birth 

 and pedigree to all parts of England. And every single measure- 

 ment is more or less over the Wiltshire mean : this also might 

 have been expected. But in some the excess is more marked ; and 

 these are, not the niinimum breadth of the forehead, but the 

 Stephanie breadth (that of what are commonly called the temples), 

 and the bigonial (that of the angles of the mandible or lower 

 jaw) ; also the length of the arc passing between the ears over 

 the brows, and the length of the nose. The mean capacity ia 



