PHYSICAL CHARACTERS IN MAN 63 



goes back at least to the Percys. It happens, also, 

 that Lad}^ Perc}^ was an albino. The white flare 

 may therefore, possibly, have originated with her, 

 for although no such case is on record, it is known 

 (see next paragraph) that spotted mulattoes arise 

 from an ancestr\^ in which different types of skin 

 pigmentation have been involved. 



Another interesting case, first recorded by Simpson 

 and Castle (191 3), is of spotting arising in a coloured 

 race. It originated as a novelty — a spotted woman 

 born from ordinary mulatto parents in Louisiana in 

 1853. No case of spotting had previously been 

 known in that part of the country. She married 

 a normal black negro, and their children numbered 

 fifteen, eight spotted like the mother, and seven 

 normal, but var3dng in depth of colour as is usual with 

 mulattoes. Three of the normal children and three 

 spotted married normal negro mates. The normals 

 had in all seven children, all normal. The spotted 

 had in all nine spotted and two normal. This indi- 

 cates that all the spotted individuals, male and 

 female, behaved as heterozygotes, and that complete 

 segregation occurs between spotting and non-spotting. 

 The fact that spotting appears rarely and sporadically 

 among the innumerable mulatto crosses tells strongly 

 against it being the result of an inherited spotting 

 factor. The particularly clear evidence here indicates 

 that it arises as a mutation in the h\'brid stock, the 

 original spotted individual being heterozygous and 

 the piebald condition dominant to normal mulatto 

 pigmentation. 



With regard to the ancestral colour of man, it seems 

 clear that the most primitive races were black (as 

 John Hunter concluded 150 3^ears ago), or at any 

 rate dark, as the}^ are now, and that the white race 

 arose from them wdth loss of pigmentation. It 

 appears unlikely that a simple mutation was involved. 



