XIV. 



. ON THE WEDDO OF CEYLON. 



Professor Rolleston exhibited in 1872 to the British Asso- 

 ciation, Section of Biology, ten photographs of the Jungle Weddo, 

 taken by B. F. Hartshorne, Esq., as also three skulls of the 

 same tribe procured by the same gentleman, and some skulls 

 of certain Kolarian tribes procured by H. Duthoit, Esq., of 

 Mirzapore, and exhibited for the sake of comparison with those 

 of the Ceylon aborigines. There was no doubt about the genuine- 

 ness of the three Weddo skulls ; yet one of the three was as 

 markedly brach} T cephalic (the cephalic index being 81) as the 

 others, or as Weddo skulls usually, were dolichocephalic. The 

 cephalic indices in the two other skulls, procured from the district 

 of the Jungle Weddo, a tribe now numbering, in all probability, 

 little over 100 persons, were 70 and j6. In three other Weddo 

 skulls, two of which had been obtained by Lieutenant Perkins 

 for Canon Greenwell, and the third had been presented by Mr. 

 Sabonnadiere to the Oxford University Museum, the cephalic 

 indices were respectively 72, 68, and 64. The cubic capacity in 

 each of the two dolichocephalic crania sent by Mr. Hartshorne 

 was 85*25 cubic inches and 80 cubic inches respectively; the cubic 

 capacity of the single brachycephalic specimen was, approximatively, 

 69 cubic inches. It was of importance to note that synostosis 

 could have had nothing to do with the bringing about of the 

 aberrances of the brachycephalic Weddo cranium, for the coronal 

 suture was open whilst the sagittal was obliterated, the very 

 condition which, if the shape of the skull had ruled the shape of 

 the brain instead of the reverse, would have produced dolicho- 

 cephaly. The presence of parietal occipital flattening on the left 

 side (a deformity unintentionally produced during early life by the 

 mode of carrying the infant) was also noteworthy as being rarely 

 observed except in brachycephalous skulls. With reference to the 



