100 REPORT— 1877. 



to the 85 legitimate descendants, they were less flagrantly bad, for only 5 of them 

 had been in jail, and only 13 others had been paupers. Now the ancestor of all 

 this mischief, who was born about the year 1730, is described as having been a 

 hunter and a fisher, a jolly companionable man, averse to steady labour, working 

 hard and idling by turns, and who had numerous illegitimate children, whose issue 

 has not been traced. He was, in fact, a somewhat good specimen of a half-savage, 

 without any seriously criminal instincts. The girls were apparently attractive, 

 marrying early and sometimes not badly ; but the gipsy-like character of the race 

 was unsuited to success in a civilized country. So the descendants went to the bad, 

 and the hereditary moral weaknesses they may have had rose to the surface and 

 worked then" mischief without a check. Cohabiting with criminals, and being ex- 

 tremely prolific, the result was the production of a stock exceeding 500 in number, 

 of a prevalent criminal type. Through disease and intemperance the breed is now 

 rapidly diminishing ; the infant mortality has of late been horrible among them ; 

 but fortunately the women of the present generation bear usually but few children 

 and many of them are altogether childless. 



This is not the place to go further into details. I have alluded to the Juices 

 family in order to show what extremely important topics lie open to inquiry in a 

 single branch of anthropological research, and to stimulate others to follow it out. 

 There can be no more interesting subject to us than the quality of the stock of 

 our countrymen and of the human race generally, and there can be no more worthy 

 inquiry than that which leads to an explanation of the conditions under which it 

 deteriorates or improves. 



ZOOLOGX A.ND BOTAKT. 

 [For Dr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys's Address, see page 79.] 



On t7ie Colour of Animals. By Wm. Ackrovd. 



The tendency to change which we see in all departments of nature is perhaps 

 nowhere more strikingly shown than in the phenomena of colour in the animal 

 kingdom. The apparent seasonal change of garb by the arctic fauna, the assump- 

 tion of brigher colours by males than by females in the gradual change from cub- 

 hood to the adult state, and the fading of the tints upon the nearing of old age, 

 are sufficient evidences of this. The author proceeds to deal with these phenomena 

 from a physical standpoint. 



Respecting colour m the inorganic world, two propositions are enunciated, in 

 which the coloured substance is referred to as the absorbing body. 



Prop. I. Alteration of atomic position in the absorbing body is accompanied by change 



of colour. 

 Prop. II. is the converse of I. 



Cliange of colour in the absorbing body is an evidence of its loss or gain of 

 potential energy. 



The latter proposition the writer attempts to apply to the study of the colour of 

 animals, and works with the following scale, which he terms the biological meta- 

 chromatic scale : — 



/ 



Increase of Animal 

 Potential Energy. 



\ Black 

 Brown 

 Red 

 Orange 

 Yellow 

 Green 

 Blue 

 White or Colourless \ 



Decrease of Animal 

 Potential Energy. 



/ 



