176 QUARTERLY CHRONICLE. 



precision. Other isolated specimens belong to less known 

 races, but M. Pruner-Bey lias thought it advisable to include 

 them for future comparison. He says a few words with 

 reference to the observations contained in his former memoir 

 on the same subject respecting the characters of the hair, 

 which are visible to the naked eye. 



1. With respect to colour, he has established the fact that 

 it is not always black in the negress. Besides a red colour, 

 which is very exceptional, he has met Avith hair of an ashy 

 {cendree) tint in some cases, in which the other characters 

 were perfectly nigritic. 2. Among two hundred specimens 

 of hair from natives of India, only one occurred of a straw- 

 colour, and even this might have been of foreign origin. 

 The hair of every race south of the Himalayahs is jet black; 

 but in proportion as we ascend into the more elevated regions 

 a brown colour occurs more and more frequently. 



In general, M. Pruner-Bey's recent observations have con- 

 firmed what he has before announced, viz., that the colour 

 may differ in different branches of one and the same race, 

 independently of any other change in the characters of the 

 hair. But the same observation does not hold good between 

 different races, especially when the pigmentation is examined 

 microscopically in transverse sections. 



As was shown in his former communication, the differential 

 characters of the hair of various races are found chiefly in 

 the forms presented by transverse sections. Such sections, 

 moreover, afford an opportunity of determining not only the 

 form, but also the size of the hair, a character which M. 

 Pruner-Bey considers of the greatest importance. 



Amongst the principal races whose hair forms the subject 

 of the present communication may be enumerated amongst 

 the Semitic — Arabs and Jews; and as types of the Ariau 

 family, Greeks, Brahmins, Lithuanians, &c. It would appear 

 that, according to M. Pruner-Bey, there is a marked difference 

 between the Semitic and the Arian races. The latter show- 

 ing a regular ov^l outline in the transverse section, and the 

 former one of a more or less angular outline ; so that, as the 

 learned ethnologist remarks, we might almost fancy that the 

 angular traits of the Hebrew visage were repeated in the 

 transverse section of the hair ! 



Amongst the so-termed Turanian races, we find Fins, 

 Esthonians, Samoyedes, natives of Sicily and Kabyles, &c. 

 Other races are Korouglous, ISTigritoes, Australians, Malays 

 and Polynesians — Americans, Chinese, Annamites, Japanese, 

 Santals, and finally an ape ; the hair of the latter having been 



