NOT EUGENESIC. 31 



what is the relative proportion of mulattoes of the first degree 

 who intermarry between themselves, and such who intermix 

 with other mestizos, or with individuals of a pure race ; nor 

 can we know what, in a given population, should be the normal 

 proportion of these mulattos if theywere perfectly prolific between 

 themselves. It then becomes very difficult to say whether the 

 number of mulattoes issued in a direct line from mestizos of 

 the first degi*ee is equal to the normal proportion, or inferior to it ; 

 so that, if they are but little inferior to their parents in regard to 

 fecundity, the fact might pass unobserved. The relative sterility 

 of these breeds would only become evident when it approaches 

 absolute sterility. Between this degree of prolifickness and 

 perfect fecundity there are many intermediate degrees, difficult 

 to recognise, and still more difficult to prove. 



The first French observer who has denied the prolifickness of 

 mulattoes is M. Jacquenot, author of the zoological part of the 

 Voyage to the South Pole and Oceania. We shall reproduce 

 here some passages from that work. After having spoken of 

 the cross-breeds of animals, M. Jacquinot continues in the 

 following terms } 



" It is the same in the human genus. There the species are 

 very approximating, and, according to the principles just laid 

 down, ' that the more species are approximating the greater 

 the chance of fecundity/ the mestizos issuing from the inter- 

 mixture enjoy a certain degree of prolifickness which, however, 

 as in animals, is not absolute. Like the latter, they return to 

 the mother's species in allying themselves with them ; and, 

 independently of their relative fecundity, new individuals are 

 constantly produced by the union of the parent races. 



" On observing in our colonies that a population of mulattos 

 is constantly produced and renewed, their fecundity was not 

 doubted ; yet it is very limited. On the one hand the mulattos 

 disappear every moment in one or the other of the parent 

 races, and if their unions were constantly between themselves, 

 they would not be long before becoming extinct. . . . 



1 Voyage au Pole sud et dans VOceanie sur I' Astrolabe et laZe'le'e, sous le com- 

 niandenient de Duinont-d'Urville, pendant les annees 1837-1840 : Zoologie 

 par M. Jacquinot, commandant de la Zelee, t. ii, pp. 91-93. Paris, 1846. 



