588 REPORT—1899, 
2.—Obser vations on Hearing, Smell, Taste, Reaction Time, &c. 
By C. 8. Myzrs. 
The conditions for testing acuity of hearing were very unfavourable on 
Murray Island, owing to the noise of the sea and the rustle of the cocoanut palms, 
The general results of many experiments lead me to conclude that few Murray 
Is’anders surpass a hyper-acute European in auditory acuity, while the majority 
cannot hear as far. For the determination of the upper limit of the perception of 
tcne I used Hawksley’s improved form of Galton’s Whistle. Of the fifty-one 
Murray Islanders who were investigated, all save one readily appreciated the 
difference between the pure hich note and the noise of the blast that is inseparable 
from it. Experiments were also made to determine the minimum perception of 
tone-differences. Twelve islanders were tested for their sense of rhythm; this 
was found to be remarkably accurate for 120 beats of the metronome to the minute, 
and somewhat less so for 60 beats. Most of the subjects had a tendency to vary 
in the direction of increasing the rate of the taps. 
Olfactometry is very difficult to prosecute for various reasons. Until I have 
made further comparative observations on Europeans, I can draw no certain con- 
clusions as to the relative smell-acuity of the former and the Murray Islanders; 
but so far as my experiments go, they seem to indicate no marked superiority in 
the development of this sense among the islanders. Doubtless hyper-acuity is 
more common among them, but there seems no reason to believe that they are able 
to perceive such traces of odour as would be imperceptible to the most sensitive 
European noses. 
Experiments were made to determine the appreciation and recognition of the 
common tastes—sweet, salt, bitter, and acid. Sugar and salt were readily recog- 
nised, acid was compared to unripe fruit; the bitter is the most uncertain— 
evidently there is no distinctive name for it in the Murray Island vocabulary. 
Binet’s diagram used for testing visual memory was employed on twenty-eight 
people with interesting results. 
Numerous time reaction experiments were made, more on simple auditory re- 
action than on simple visual reactions; a few visual choice reactions were also 
made. The time of the simple reaction is not sensibly longer, but probably in 
many cases even shorter, than would be that given by a corresponding class of 
Europeans. The experiments clearly showed the great difference of temperament 
among the individuals investigated. There was at one extreme the slow, steady- 
going man who reacted with almost uniform speed on each occasion; at the other 
extreme was the nervous, high-strung individual who was frequently reacting 
prematurely, and whose mean variation in consequence was relatively great. Yet 
the mean variation, save in the choice-times, was extraordinarily low for such 
unpractised people. 
3.—Observations on the Sense of Touch and of Pain, on the Estimation of Weight, 
Variations of Blood-Pressure, §c. By W.McDoveatt. 
The power of discrimination of two points by the sense of touch was investi- 
gated in a series of fifty adult males. On half the number of subjects the obser- 
vations were made on the skin of the thumb, of the second toe, and of the nape of 
the neck, and on the skin of forearm on all the subjects. There was a general 
correspondence of delicacy of discrimination in the different parts of the skin tested 
in any one subject. A few of the subjects showed a very much greater delicacy of 
discrimination than the others, while the latter showed a fairly uniform delicacy 
which is considerably greater than that shown by the short series of white men 
who have been tested by the same method. 
Observations on the sensitivity to pain produced by simple pressure on the skin 
were made by means of Cattell’s algometer. With this instrument it seems to be 
