CORRESrONDING SOCIETIES. 865 



He had tried over and over again to engage the younger men on the work 

 recommended by the Association, but without success. . His society, how- 

 ever, supported a local museum in which was contained a collection of 

 objects special to the district. 



Mr. Tocher did not agree with Mr. Walker as regards the Local 

 Societies being played out. The society he represented had during the 

 last year made observations on the pigmentation of over 2,000 children. 

 He wished other societies would take an active interest in this work. 



Dr. Henry Woodward said that there were many fields of local know- 

 ledge which were not yet exhausted, and he hoped that Local Societies 

 would pursue the work. 



Mr. Mark Stirrup pointed out that there was often some difficulty 

 experienced by societies in getting Delegates to represent them at the 

 Conference. The scientific societies also sufier from the counter-attrac- 

 tions offered by the various athletic societies to young men. 



Mr. Murdoch regretted the loss of old members who had taken active 

 part in the practical field-work of his society, and he hoped that others 

 might bo found to fill their places. 



Mr. H. J. Seymour explained that his society had been in the habit of 

 offering a prize for the best map of the local area showing the distribution 

 of heather and illustrating its zoology, botany, and geology. 



Mr. J. F. Tocher then read the following paper : — 



A Flea for a Pigmentation Survey of School Children in Ireland. 



It is a matter of common knowledge and experience, even among the 

 least observant, that there is great variation in the colour characteristics 

 of the general population in the British Isles. The cause of the variation, 

 the exact number of shades of colour involved in it, and the relationship 

 of colour to race are problems of great interest to anthropologists. In a 

 general way we have all some views on this relationship. The inheritance 

 of colour as well as that of other chai-acteristics of our parents scarcely 

 requires proof ; it is an everyday experience. There would be a dis- 

 position, for instance, on the part of a speculative person to assume a 

 fair-haired and blue-eyed child to be of a Norwegian, a Teutonic, or a 

 Saxon origin. The reason for this is based on the association of these 

 colours with many of the Norwegians and Germans one has met, upon 

 the teaching of history, and upon tradition as to the appearance of these 

 peoples. On the other hand, one might say that a swarthy-skinned, 

 dark -haired, and dark-eyed person had a southern origin, and might be an 

 Italian, a Frenchman, or a Spaniard, for similar reasons. The probability 

 of the inference being correct is greater in the former than in the latter 

 case. The point, however, is that we have here a rough qualitative test 

 of race applied by a general and not a specialised observer. The object 

 of a survey of the colour characteristics of the children of Ireland would 

 be to determine quantitatively the various shades of colour existing 

 among the people of Ireland, and thereby throw additional light on their 

 racial origin. On the Continent a survey of this kind has already been 

 carried out in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In Germany the 

 survey of the German Anthropological Society, carried out in 1875 and 

 1876 under the direction of Virchow, has yielded most interesting results. ^ 

 Virchow found, for instance, that 68 per cent, of the children over the 



' Arehiv/iir Anthropoloqie, 1886, pp: 275-I75i 

 1902. 3 k 



