ii8 



NA TURE 



[DECEMbEK 5, 1901 



supplied with numerous prolongations and sluffed with pigment 

 granules. 



The part played by phagocytes in the whitening of hair ex- 

 plains many phenomena observed long ago, but not as yet suffi- 

 ciently understood. Thus, hair turning white in a single night, 

 or in a few days, may be ex|)lained by the increased activity of 

 hair phagocytes thus enabled to transfer the pigment in so short 

 a time. 



The mechanism of the whitening of hair through the agency 

 of phagocytes allows this case of atrophy to be classed under 

 the general laws of atrophy of solid parts of the organism. 



" t)n the Inheritance of the Mental Characters in Man." By 

 Karl Pearson, F. R.S. 



(1) Mr. Francis Gallon, in his "Natural Inheritance," first, 

 I believe, endeavoured to give a quantitative appreciation of the 

 inheritance of the mental characters in man. Mr. Gallon's data 

 were not very copious, and in default of a method of dealing 

 quantitatively with characters not capable of exact scaling, it 

 was not possible to deduce absolutely conclusive results. On 

 November 19, 1899, a paper was read t6 the Royal Society 

 showing how the inheritance of characters not capable of exact 

 quantitative measurement might be deduced. I purpose in this 

 notice to give only a few results from some very elaborate 

 observations which have been made in the course of the last few 

 years and reduced by the processes of that paper. 



(2) The material was collected in two separate ways. In 

 the first series — the Family Measurement Series — only physical 

 characters were observed. This series was started six years ago, 

 and upwards of iioo families, father, mother, and not more 

 than two sons and two daughters, were measured. The series 

 was closed two years ago, and last year Ur. Alice Lee completed 

 the reduction of this very large mass of material. 



My second series is still more extensive; but it relates only to 

 collateral — fraternal — heredity. It aims at observing a wide 

 range of both physical and mental characters in pairs of school 

 children. I have received most kindly aid from a great number 

 of masters and mistresses in public .schools, high schools, 

 secondary and primary schools of all classes. This will be 

 very fully acknowledged in the final publication of the results. 

 But although the work has been in progress for three years, we 

 have siill only material enough to draw conclusions in the ca.se 

 of pairs of brothers, of whom more than 1000 cases have been 

 observed. 



(3) Only three of the physical measurements of this extensive 

 series have yet been reduced, and the sister-sister and .sister- 

 brother observations will have lo be carried on for another year or 

 two before they are sufficiently numerous to be dealt with. The 

 whole material will then require two or three years for tabulation 

 and calculation. But as the problem of the inheritance of the 

 mental characters and their correlation with the physical was 

 occupying our attention in another field, the indefatigable Dr. 

 Lee undertook the tabulation and calculation of the coefficients 

 of heredity in the case of seven mental and three physical charac- 

 ters for pairs of brothers. The number of pairs dealt with in 

 each case was 800 to 1000. The method adopted was that of 

 the memoir on " The Inheritance of Characters not capable of 

 Exact (,)uantitative Measurement."' Thus, under the heading 

 Conscientiousness were two divisions, Keen and Dull, and the 

 teacher might place a cross on either of these or on the dividing 

 line. Similar divisions occurred in the other categories, except 

 that Intelligence was given six and Temper three subdivisions, 

 &c. The sole object in the present preliminary notice is to draw 

 attention to the following results : — 



Coefficients of Collateral Heredity. 



Correlation of Tairs of Brothers. 



Physicai Cliaracters. Mental Characters, 



(Family Measurcmcnrs.) (School Observations.) 



Stature O'5io7 Intelligence 0-4559 



Forearm o'49i2 Vivacity 0*4702 



Span 0'5494 Conscientiousness ... 05929 



Eye-colour 0-5169 Popularity 05044 



(School Observations.) Temper 0-5068 



Cephalic index 0-4861 Self-consciousness ...0-5915 



Haircolour 0-5452 Shyness 0-5281 



Health 05203 



Mean 0-5171 Mean 0-5214 



The physical characters were measured or observed on two 

 entirely different groups of individuals — in the one case adults, in 



r Pliit, Trans, A vol. cxcv. pp. 79-150. 



NO. 1675, VOL. 65] 



the other children were examined. The means for both series 

 are almost identical (-5170 and '5172) Dealing with the means 

 for physical and mental characters their likeness forces us to 

 the perfectly definite conclusion : That the mental characters in 

 man are inherited in precisely the same manner as the physical. 

 Our mental and moral nature is, quite as much as our physical 

 nature, the outcome of hereditary factors. 



Entomological Society, November 6. — The Rev. Canon 

 Prowler, president, in the chair. — The Rev. F. D. Morice 

 exhibited two imperfectly developed females of Osmia leucome- 

 lana found dead in a minis stem at Woking with their cases. — 

 Mr. C. P. Pickett exhibited a series of aberrations of Colias 

 hyale taken at Folkestone during August 1900-1.— Mr. F. B. 

 Jennings exhibited a specimen of Trachyphloeus myrmecophilus, 

 Seidl., taken at Hastings in September last, retaining intact the 

 deciduous " false mandibles," with the aid of which the imago 

 of the species of this and certain other genera of weevils is said 

 to work its way to the surface after emerging from the pupa 

 underground. These mandibles are usually shed as soon as the 

 imago begins its life above ground, as there is no further use for 

 them — Mr. W. J. Kaye exhibited a collection of buttertlles made 

 bv him in Trinidad, with several hitherto undescribed species, 

 lie said that the probable total rhopalocerous fauna was about 250 

 species, the island — about the size of .Somersetshire — being thus 

 remarkably rich in butterflies. The number of the species in the 

 families exhibited were Nymphalidtv 34, Satyrid;v 13, Papi- 

 lionidn: 6, Pieridie 31, Erycinidie 29, Lycrenida; 27, Ilesperiida: 

 62 — nearly all taken within three or four miles of Port of Spain. 

 The series of Heliconius tehhinia and lith^rea megara^ var. 

 /lavesrens, were particularly fine, showing the yellow coloration 

 only found in Trinidad and the coast of \*enezuela immediately 

 opposite. A long series of Papilio xetixis, and Papilio alyattus, 

 many of them bred from the same parent 9 , show that these 

 two are in reality identical species. The number of Erycinid* 

 in Trinidad compared with the poverty of the same sp:cies in 

 other West Indian islands indicates the different origin of its 

 fauna, and suggests affinity with the mainland of Venezuela, 

 which at the nearest point is but seven miles distant. — Dr. 

 Chapman exhibited specimens of Parnassius apollo taken last 

 July in Castile and Aragon (Spain), as well as a number of speci- 

 mens of both P. apollo and P. delius, chiefly Swiss and French, 

 taken by himself, Mr. Tutt, Mr. A. H. Jones (at Digne), and 

 Mr. Rowland-Brown (at Susa, N. Italy), for comparison with the 

 Spanish specimens and to illustrate the extent to which the 

 races of these species approach each other in western Europe. 

 — Mr. G. C. Bignell sent for discussion a specimen of Spheco- 

 phaga vespariim. Curt., and the cocoon from which it had been 

 bred. — Mr. Gilbert J. Arrow communicated a paper upon the 

 genus Ilyliota, with descriptions of new forms and a list of 

 described species, and .Mr. W. L. Distant, contributions to 

 a knowledge of the Rhynchota. 



Royal Meteorological Society, November 20.— Mr. 

 W. H. Dines, president, in the chair. — .\ paper by Mr. A. 

 Lawrence Rolch on the exploration of the atmosphere at sea by 

 means of kites was read by the secretary. The author has for 

 some years past devoted his attention to the use of kites to 

 obtain meteorological observations at the Blue Hill Observatory, 

 Mass., U.S.A., and he has successfully carried on the work of 

 exploring the air there to a height of three miles by several 

 hundred kite flights executed in varied weather conditions 

 whenever the velocity of the wind exceeded twelve miles an 

 hour. Certain types of weather, however, such as anti-cyclones, 

 accompanied by light winds, can rarely be studied. Mr. Rotch 

 now proposes the employment of kites carrying meteorographs 

 on steamships, especially on vessels cruising in tropical oceans. 

 He has himself demonstrated the practicability of this scheme, 

 as on .-Vugust 22 last he raised a kite to an elevation of half a 

 mile from a tow-boat in Massachusetts Bay, when the velocity 

 of the wind at sea-level varied between .six and ten miles an 

 hour. At the end of the same month, when cros.sing the North 

 Atlantic from Boston to Liverpool on the steamship Common- 

 wealth, he was able to raise kites carrying a meteorograph to an 

 altitude of 1600 feet on five days out of the eight. The chief 

 feature of these records was the rapid change of temperature 

 with height. — A paper by Prof. J. Milne, l-".R.S.,on meteor- 

 ological phenomena in relation to changes in the vertical, was 

 also read by the secretary. When resident in Japan some years 

 ago the author carried on numerous observations by seismo- 

 graphs for ascertaining changes in the vertical, and found that 



