750 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
This would, however, place them among the Oceanic Negritos, 
who are now found scattered in small tribes from the Andaman 
Islands to the Phillipines and New Guinea,* and not among the 
later Melanesians. 
It is noteworthy that all these scattered Oceanic Negritos 
appear to be mere survivals of a former widespread autochthonous 
race, which have been preserved either in inaccessible parts of 
Malaysia, like the Samangs of the Malay Peninsula and the now 
extinct Kalangs of Java, or isolated in islands which, like Tas- 
mania and the Andamans, have been cut off by subsidence of 
parts of a former continent. 
While it may be accepted that the present distribution of the 
Oceanic Negritos indicates a primitive population spread over 
Malaysia, or rather inhabiting the former southern extension of 
the Indo-Asiatic continent, it does not necessarily follow that 
they all represent the same branch of the primitive stock, but 
rather, more or less, nearly successive offshoots. 
As to the Melanesians, Dr. Codrington’s argument, which I 
have already quoted,+ may be again poreared to, in so far that the 
stock from which they have branched off must have been 
acquainted with (sea-going) canoes, houses, and the cultivation 
of gardens ; therefore, ‘those ancient Melanesians could not have 
been the progenitors of the ancestors of the Tasmanians, being in 
a far higher level of culture. 
It seems to me also permissible to distinguish the Tasmanians 
and Andamanese from tribes such as the Samangs and Kalangs. 
On these grounds I would suggest the following tentative 
hypothesis :— 
An original Negrito population, as represented by the wild 
tribes of Malaysia; a subsequent offshoot represented by the 
Andamanese and Tasmanians, and another offshoot in a higher 
state of culture originating the Melanesians. 
As to the Australians, [ may say that the discussion of the 
problem as to the origin of these savages and of the Tasmanians, 
has led me to conclusions which require, as the original stock of 
the former, such a race as would be supplied by the “low form 
of Caucasian Melanochroi,” suggested by Sir W. H. Fowler and 
Mr. Lydekker. From such a ‘stock the Dravidians may be also 
thought to have been in part derived. 
Here and there in Asia are sporadic groups of people, charac- 
terised by black hair and dark eyes, with a skin of almost all 
shades, from white to black, frequently with profuse beards and 
body hair, and being in many cases in a condition of low savages. { 
Such are the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Hairy Ainus of Japan, 
the Maoutze of China, and perhaps the Todas of India. Such a 
* XXXIV, p. 254. fT 1x, p. 78. { Xxx1v, p. 418. 
