396 PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE 



So far then as this evidence indicates, the French head as found in 

 the Montreal district, with its Breton population, presents a longer 

 tjpe than that of the Quebec district with its colonists from Nor- 

 mandy. This therefore seems to point to the assignment of the longer 

 head to the more Celtic French race. Again, the Celtic head-form of 

 the British Islands appears to be still more dolichocephalic ; and so 

 constant is this, that out of ninety-three head-forms bearing Celtic 

 names, I have only met with six approximating to the short or brachy- 

 cephalic type ; and out of five hundred and forty-two with Anglo- 

 Saxon names, only thirteen of short type ; and this among a popula- 

 lation inter-marrying with their fellow-subjects of French origin, and 

 with no permanent barrier to the ultimate blending of the two races 

 into one. So far as the cranial evidence defines a difference between 

 the two types of head of the French habitans, it accords with the 

 historical data referred t6 by M. D'Halloy in his Races Humaines, 

 where — after referring to the predominance of Teutonic influence 

 on the population of Northern France classed by him in the Latin 

 Family, as distinct from the Bas-Bretons and others of the Celtic 

 Family, he adds : "Cette influence se fait surtout sentir en Nor- 

 mandie, contree qui doit son nom aux 6tablissement3 que des Scandi- 

 naves y ont formes dans le JOe siecle." The population was distin- 

 guished by language as well as name from the Celtic north-west of 

 Neustria, long before the invasion of the Northmen. Romanised 

 Oauls, Franks, and Burgundians were mingled under Merovingian, 

 Carlo vingian, and Scandinavian conquerors, by processes very analo- 

 gous to those which made Celtic Britain Anglo-Saxon. Nor is the 

 character of the Franco-Canadian wholly inconsistent with the idea 

 of a temperament modified by some infusion of Norse or Danish with 

 the older Gaulish and Prankish blood. Instead of what Tennyson 

 calls " the blind hysterics of the Celt," the Canadian Habitant is 

 marked by a docile and kindly temperament, which presents some 

 analogies to that of the Scoto-Scandinavian population of the Orkneya. 

 Sheriff Robertson, of Orkney, after long experience in the exercise of 

 his judicial functions there, illustrated the character of the population 

 by referring me to one of the Islands forming a distinct parish with 

 several hundred inhabitants, who dwelt there without resident justice, 

 magistrate, or constable, and had never given him occasion to bring 

 his judicial services into requisition. This he contrasted with the 

 more irascible fervour of the Celtic population on the neighbouring 

 Scottish mainland. But if the brachy cephalic head of the Quebec 



