52 LIFE OF FLOWER 



mankind, and so to throw light upon the history and 

 development of the human species." 



The races towards which special attention was directed 

 in these lectures were mainly those inhabiting the 

 islands of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, namely, the 

 diminutive and degraded Andamanese, the Australians, 

 and their near but very distinct neighbours, the Tas- 

 manians, long since extinct, the Melanesians or Oceanic 

 Negroes, and the Polynesians. With the exception of 

 the latter, which the Professor regarded as an aberrant 

 and somewhat mixed modification of the Malay stock, 

 all these different island races were considered to belong 

 to the black or negroid branch of the human species ; 

 and it was suggested that the Andamanese were the 

 purest living representatives of a great "Negrito" 

 stock, which had been formerly widely distributed, and 

 had given rise to the true African negroes on the one 

 hand, and to the Oceanic negroes on the other. As 

 regards his view that the aboriginal Australians are 

 members of the negroid branch, it will be pointed 

 out in a later chapter that an alternative opinion has of 

 late years gained considerable favour among anthro- 

 pologists. 



The Hunterian lectures of Flower were, however, by 

 no means restricted to the negro-like races of the 

 islands of the southern oceans. On the contrary, the 

 Professor devoted much attention in the course of trje 

 series to the various races to be met with in our Indian 

 dependencies, dwelling especially on the so-called 

 Dravidian (i.e. non- Aryan) tribes of the Nilgiris and 

 other districts of southern India, and likewise on the 

 still more remarkable and primitive Veddas of Ceylon. 



