SKIN COLOUR 163 



wherever they find the existence — or the alleged existence 

 — of these intermediates, there they raise their standard 

 and issue their challenge. They have done so, for instance, 

 with regard to the colour of the Shirley poppy petals, 

 of the colour and markings of mice, of the grades of 

 single combs in fowls, and of the grades of skin colour 

 in crossed races of Mankind. It will be our pleasant duty 

 from time to time to comment upon their efforts in the 

 pages of this Journal. And we proceed to do so at 

 once by dealing with tlieir recent publications on the 

 two latter subjects, in the notes which follow. 



(2) Skin Colour in Human Hybrids. 



A Mendelian Reply, including a New Mendelian Hypothesis. 



In a recent number* of " Biometrika," Professor Karl 

 Pearson has a " Note on the Skin Colour of the Crosses 

 between Negro and White." Those of us who are 

 familiar with the published works of Professor Pearson 

 will be impressed by a significant absence of that militant 

 note which characterised his earlier attacks upon 

 Mendelism. We no longer read the uncompromising 

 assurance " that nothing corresponding to Mendel's 

 principles appears in these characters for Man."f In 

 its place we are glad to note a chastened tone, and we 

 are informed, not that the evidence which he has adduced 

 in this note is destructive of Mendelism, but simply that 

 " In view of the opinions I have cited above, I think 

 the suggestion that skin colour ' Mendelises ' should not 

 be vaguely made until some very definite evidence in 

 its favour is forthcoming." And, so much has the 

 uncompromising attitude been modified, that Professor 

 Pearson further thinks it conceivable that such qualities 

 as the negroid lip, the crimped hair, the characteristic 

 aloe nasi, and the peculiar negro temper, would fit the 

 Mendehan theory closer than skin colour. % And he thinks 



* Part IV., Vol. VI., March, 1909. 



f " Biometrika," Vol. II., pp. 214 and 215. 



Xlbid, Part IV., Vol. VI., p. 352. 



