421 EEPORT — 18J4. 



observations, and Dr. Groome, of Stowmarket, for the folk-lore. The 

 Bristol and Gloucestershire Archfeological Society and the Cotteswold 

 Club have formed a joint local committee, of which Dr. Beddoe and 

 Mr. Sidney Hartland are members. A research committee has been 

 appointed by the Cardiff Naturalists' Society, of which Mr. F. T. Howard, 

 of University College, Cardiff, is the secretary. The Northamptonshire 

 Natural History Society and Field Club is also taking steps in the same 

 direction. The societies in Manchester and Liverpool and the Glasgow 

 Arclueological Society will, it is hoped, also be able to organise sub- 

 committees for the purpose. A sub-committee for Wales and another 

 for Ireland had been formed when the first report of the Committee was 

 presented. 



10. The Sub-Committee for Ireland, consisting of representatives of 

 the Royal Irish Academy, has, indeed, already completed two memoirs, 

 which serve as excellent types of what this Committee aims at doing for 

 the United Kingdom at large. These memoirs have been read before 

 that Academy and published in its ' Proceedings,' and relate to the ethno- 

 graphy of the Aran Islands, by Professor A. C. Haddon, secretary of 

 the sub-committee, and Dr. C. R. Browne ; and the ethnography of 

 Inishbofin and Inishshark, county Galway, by Dr. Browne. They have 

 been prepared in pursuance of a plan adopted by the Dublin Anthro- 

 pomorphic Committee of combining the ordinary work of the laboratory 

 with local investigation in selected parts of the country. The islands of 

 Inishbofin and Inishshark, with some small uninhabited islets, form the 

 parish of Inishbofin, and are situated outside of Killary Bay, and about 

 sixteen miles distant from Clifden, the nearest town of any size. The 

 climate is mild even in winter, but the islands are subject to heavy rains 

 and fierce storms, which often cut off communication with the mainland 

 for days. For his observation of the physical types of the people 

 Dr. Browne used the form of schedule adopted for Ireland by this 

 Committee, which slightly differs from that above given as adopted for 

 England. The instruments taken with him were Garson's anthropometer, 

 a sliding measure for the limbs, Broca's compas d'qjaisseur' and compas 

 glissiere, a Chesterman steel tape, a portable form of Cunningham cranio- 

 meter (made specially for field work by Messrs. Robinson, of Grafton 

 Street, Dublin), and a set of Snellen test-types for estimating keenness of 

 eyesight, the whole, with notebook and observation forms, fitted in a 

 canvas knapsack, weighing under ten pounds. He had some difficulty in 

 overcoming the repugnance of the people to be measured, observed, and 

 jihotographed, but succeeded in noting the eye and hair colours of 241 

 individuals and measuring 40 adult males, being about one-fifth of the 

 whole number in the islands. The average height of the men was 

 1,633 mm., or 5 feet 6^ inches, slightly less than the Irish mean stature ; 

 and the women presented the similarity of appearance presumed to be due 

 to intermarriage of the same families through several generations. Sight 

 and hearing were very acute. In addition to the observations made on 

 the living subject, the measurements of a series of crania were obtained, 

 and some further measurements of crania secured by Professor Haddon 

 have also been communicated by him to the Academy. These were all 

 (as were the majority of the living subjects measured) mesaticephalic, 

 having a mean cephalic index of 77. The population of the islands, 

 though still dense, is steadily decreasing. In 1891 it consisted of 511 

 males and 486 females (a difference of 25, not 95, as mispi-inted in the 



