3o8 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



many parts of that great island, small round-headed 

 tribes live more or less distinct from the larger and 

 longer-headed people who make up the bulk of the 

 population." (Lecture at the Royal Institution, April 

 13, 1888, reprinted in Essays on Museums, 1898, p. 302.) 

 No further information is given, nor are his authorities 

 mentioned. Perhaps he was alluding to the following 

 statement by de Quatrefages, " L'extension des Negritos 

 en Melanesie est bien plus considerable. Ici leurs tribus 

 sont melees et juxtaposees a celles des Papouas probable- 

 ment dans toute la Nouvelle Guinee " (Rev. d'Ethn., 1882, 

 p. 185) ; subsequently he wrote, " La confusion regret- 

 table (namely the confusion of the brachycephalic 

 Negrito-Papuans with the dolichocephalic Papuans, of 

 which Earl, Wallace, Meyer and others have been guilty) 

 est cause que Ton n'a pas recherche les traits differentiels 

 qui peuvent distinguer les Negritos-Papous des vrais 

 Papouas au point de vue de I'etat social, des moeurs, des 

 croyances, des industries." [Les Pygmees, 1887, p. 97, 

 English Translation, 1895, p. 62.) Dr. A. B. Meyer, 

 from whose essay these quotations have been taken, 

 adds, *' No, the confusion has not been in this case in 

 the heads of the travellers ; a Negritic race, side by side 

 with the Papuan race, nobody has been able to discover, 

 just because it does not exist, and it does not exist 

 because the Papuan race, in spite of its variability, is on 

 the one hand a uniform race, and on the other as good 

 as identical with the Negritos." [The Distribution of the 

 Negritos, 1899, p. 85.) When reviewing this essay in 

 Nature (Sept. 7, 1899, p. 433), I stated that I was inclined 

 to adopt the view that the various types exhibited by 

 the natives of New Guinea "point to a crossing of dif- 

 ferent elements," and do not " simply reveal the varia- 

 bility of the race," as Dr. Meyer provisionally believed. 

 While agreeing with Dr. Meyer that the " different con- 

 ditions of existence " (p. 80) in New Guinea probably 



