726 



NATURE 



[February 3, 192 1 



The classic discussion of this sort of thing is to be 

 found in Sir Francis (Gallon's "Inquiries into Human 

 Faculty and its Uevelopment " (London, Macmillan, 

 1883). This has been reprinted in Everyman's 

 Library. Since that time very little has been written 

 in English on the subject. With the exception of a 

 letter in Nature (vol. xliv., p. 223, 1891) and two 

 papers by Miss M. A. Calkins in the American 

 Journal of Psychology (1892), there has been nothing 

 published on the subject until my articles in 1905 and 

 1908 respectively appeared in the Edinburgh Medical 

 Journal and in the Journal of Abnonnal Psychology 

 (Boston, U.S.A.). The British Review of April, 1913, 

 published a popular account of colour-hearing by 

 C. C. Martindale. D. Eraser Harris. 



Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 

 December, 1920. 



Appendix. 

 Coloured Concepts or Psychochromes of Miss A. M. 



a, creamy-white; b, shade clearer than "d"; 

 c, pink ; d, indigo, dirty (gritty) blue ; c, black (wet) ; 

 f, dry brown; g, black on white; h, darkish fawn, 

 like chocolate blancmange; i, black; j, dirty, pearly, 

 bluish-white; k, clear brown, edged with mustard- 

 yellow ; 1, yellow ; m, jade-green ; n, pea-greep ; 

 o, black; p, darker green, bluer; q, black, with red 

 tinge ; r, dry red ; s, crimson, scarlet ; t, deep black- 

 red ; u, dark grey, almost black ; v, very dark navy, 

 blue and green ; w, not so dark, green and navy ; 

 X, brownish-mustard-yellow, very ugly ; y, almost 

 neutral bluish-green; z, like " x," but a little 

 yellower. 



Sunday, golden-yellow, with a fleck of green in the 

 middle ; Monday, pretty light green ; Tuesday, dark 

 blue with red flecks ; Wednesday, soft, deeper green ; 

 Thursday, like Tuesday, with more red ; Friday, 

 brown, soft like su6de gloves ; Saturday, bright 

 scarlet. 



January, clear, intense pale green, like ice ; 

 February, dirty light reddish-brown; March, green 

 and red at end; April, fresh, pale yellow; May, very 

 pale green, almost white ; June, green ; July, yellow 

 and roval blue ; .August, golden-yellow ; September, 

 red and brown (autumn); October, navy blue; 

 November, brown with yellow- edges ; December, 

 dirtv, almost colourless, made up of black, navy blue, 

 and dark green. 



Christmas, pink' (Christ), red and green (mas); 

 Easter, creamj'-white. 



I, black; 2, creamy-yellow; 3, red, pale; 4, brown; 

 5, bright, wet red; 6, dull indigo; 7, ugly yellow; 

 8, white; 9, green; 10, black; 11, black and yellow; 

 12, creamy-yellow. 



The twenties, yellow ; the thirties, reddish ; the 

 forties, brown ; etc. The hundreds are the same. 



Synaesthesiac. 



Pains have colours, but following the colours of 

 the names, i.e. sore, red; ache, opaque-whitish; 

 sprain, greenish-red ; cut, blue and red ; bruise, blue 

 and red. 



Tastes are only slightly coloured : acid are sharp, 

 penetrating yellow ; sweet, soft yellow. Odours, only 

 sHfhtlv, either grey or yellow : a mustv smell is grey 

 and red ; acrid, yellowish-grey. Touch, not at all : 

 heat is yellow, and difl^erent degrees different shades 

 up to a pure white, which is cold. 



Music is the only thing that makes Miss A. M. see 

 purple and violet. Deep organ notes blend from blue 

 to nurole. but only music. Even the names " nurole " 

 and "violet" she sees only by the letters which make 

 them up. If "violet" had not a "t" at the end 

 it would be merely dark blue, and the same with the 



NO. 2675, VOL. 106] 



" r " in purple. J'he lo\*est organ notes are, to her, 

 deep purple, like a bruise, while the very high notes 

 are yellow and pink. 



Psychograms. 



Numerals go like this : 



The alphabet goes like this : 



IT 



The months go like this : 



Jan. 

 Feb. 

 March 

 April 

 May 

 June 

 July 

 Aug. 

 Sept. 

 Oct. 

 Nov. 

 Dec. 



The week between Christmas and New Year's Day 

 stretches back to January. 



Days of the week go like this : 



Sat. Sat. 



Sun. Fri. 



Mon. Thurs. 



Tues. Wed. 



Heredity and Acquired Characters. 



Mr. J. T. Cunningham remarks (Nature, January 

 13, p. 630): "Provided that biologists understand one 

 another, it is, perhaps, not an insuperable barrier 

 to the progress of biology that Sir Archdall Reid is 

 unable to understand their terminology." Prof. Mac- 

 Bride declares (ibid.) : " I have attended many con- 

 gresses of biologists, and I have never found evidence 

 of confusion in their minds as to what was meant by 

 an 'acquired character.'" I feel humbled, but not 

 enlightened. 



As far as I am able to understand Mr. Cunning- 

 ham's letter, he regards as "acquired" everything 

 which develops in response to use, and everything 

 else as "innate." Herein he agrees with Lamarck 

 and Sir Ray Lankester, but differs from a host of 

 other writers, including Spencer, Wallace, Romanes, 

 and Weismann, all of whom regarded the effects of 

 injuries as "acquired" characters. He differs even 

 from himself, for he has, when arguing in favour of 

 the transmission of acquirements, attributed the 

 evolution of antlers to the effects of irritation (injury). 

 He differs in the same issue of N.4TURE from Prof. 

 MacBride, according to whom " ' acquired character ' 

 is a technical term; by it is meant a quality, i.e. the 

 degree of development of an organ, which is produced 

 as a response to function, altered from the normal 

 in response to an alteration of the environment from 

 the normal." Whence it follows that, while Mr. 

 Cunningham would term the muscular development 

 of the ordinary man "acquired," Prof. MacBride 

 would call it "innate," and would limit the term 



