:mi.p. VII. The Extinction of Races. i8i 



JUT domestic animals a new race can readily be formed by care- 

 fully matching the varying offspring from a single pair, or even 

 irom a single individual possessing some new character; but 

 most of our races have been formed, not intentionally from a 

 selected pair, but unconsciously by the preservation of many in- 

 dividuals which have varied, however slightly, in some useful or 

 desired manner. If in one country stronger and heavier horses, 

 and in another country lighter and fleeter ones, were habitually 

 preferred, we may feel sure that two distinct sub-breeds would 

 be produced in the course of time, without any one pair having 

 been separated and bred from, in either country. Many races 

 have been thus formed, and their manner of formation is closely 

 analogous to that of natural species. We know, also, that the 

 horses taken to the Falkland Islands have, during successive 

 generations, become smaller and weaker/whilst those which have 

 run wild on the Pampas have acqiiired larger and coarser heads ; 

 and such changes are manifestly due, not to any one pair, but to 

 all the individuals having been subjected to the same conditions, 

 aided, perhaps, by the principle of reversion. The new sub- 

 breeds in such cases ai-e not descended from any single pair, but 

 from many individuals which have varied in different degrees, 

 but in the same general manner ; and we may conclude that the 

 races of man have been similarly produced, the modifications 

 being either the direct result of exposure to different conditions, 

 or the indirect result of some form of selection. But to this 

 latter subject we shall presently return. 



On the Extinction of the Saces of Man. — The partial or complete 

 extinction of many races and sub-races of man is historically 

 kuown. Humboldt saw in South America a parrot which was 

 the sole living creature that could speak a word of the language 

 of a lost tribe. Ancient monuments and stone implements 

 found in all parts of the world, about which no tradition has been 

 preserved by the present inhabitants, indicate much extinction. 

 Some small and broken tribes, remnants of former races, still 

 survive in isolated and generally mountainous districts. In 

 Europe the ancient races were all, according to Schaaffhausen,^' 

 " lower in the scale than the rudest living savages ;" they must 

 therefore have differed, to a certain extent, from any existing 

 race. The remains described by Professor Broca from Lee Eyzies, 

 though they unfortunately appear to have belonged to a single 

 family, indicate a race with a most singular combination oS lOW 

 or simious, and of high characteristics. This race is " entirelj 



29 Trinslatiim in ' Antli-vopological Review,' Oct. 1868, p. 431 



