IN THE HUMAN SPECIES. 249 



III. Red or copper colour (bronze Fr. an obscure orange 

 or rusty iron colour, not unlike the bark of the cinnamon- 

 tree) prevails in various shades over nearly the whole con- 

 tinent of America, and is almost confined to that division of 

 the globe. 



IV. Brown or tawney {basan^ Fr. a middle tint between 

 the colour of fresh mahogany and of cloves or chesnuts). 

 It characterizes the Malays, and most of the inhabitants of 

 the numerous islands scattered through the pacific Ocean. 



V. Black in various shades, from the sooty colour or 

 tawny black, to that of pitch or ebony, or jet-black. This 

 prevails very extensively on the continent of Africa, charac- 

 terizing all the negro tribes. It is found also in the Negro- 

 like natives of New Holland, Van Diemen's Land, Papua 

 or New Guinea, the New Hebrides, and other islands of the 

 South Sea ; and is seen, mingled with the national colour, 

 in Brazil, California, and India. The New Caledonians 

 constitute an insensible transition, with the chesnut-coloured 

 islanders of Tongataboo, and the dark New Hollanders, from 

 the tawny or brown Otaheiteans to the Papuas or Negroes 

 of New Guinea. 



In describing these varieties, it is necessary to fix on the 

 most strongly marked tints, between which there is every 

 conceivable intermediate shade of colour. The opposite ex- 

 tremes run into each other by the nicest and most delicate 

 gradations ; and it is the same in every other particular, in 

 which the various tribes of the human species differ. This 

 forms no slight objection to the hypothesis of distinct species : 

 for, on that supposition, we cannot define their number, 

 nor draw out the boundaries that divide them ; whereas, in 

 animals most resembling each other, the different species 

 are preserved pure and unmixed. Neither does the colour, 

 which I have described in general terms as belonging to 

 any particular race, prevail so universally in all the indivi- 

 duals of that race as to constitute an invariable character, 

 as we should expect if it arose from a cause so uniform as 

 an original specific difference : its varieties, on the contrary, 

 point out the action of other circumstances. I'hus, al- 



