Proceedings of Learned Societies. 893 



PROCEEDINGS OP LEAKNED SOCIETIES. 



BY W. B. TEGETMEIEE. 



ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY.— April 11. 



On the African or Occidental Negro. — Dr. Crawford gave a 

 very impartial account of the physical and mental qualities of the 

 true Negro race, as distinguished from the other dark races, with 

 which it is not unfrequently confounded. In the true African 

 Negro the hair is always black and woolly, the skin black, of various 

 shades, the eyes dark, face flat, nose depressed, jaws projecting, with 

 thick lips and large mouth, the incisor teeth being oblique. The 

 skin possesses a peculiar odour unknown in any other races of men. 



The true Negro is of the average height of Europeans, and is 

 the only dark race possessing the same average amount of strength. 

 Prom the Negroes must be distinguished the following African 

 races — namely, the yellow Hottentots, the Abyssinians, the Samouli, 

 and the Galli, all of whom have long hair and well-developed 

 features. The civilization of the Negroes cannot be compared with 

 that of the European races; it is even far inferior to that of many 

 other races on their own continent. Their agriculture and manu- 

 factures are of the coarsest kind ; they have no literature, and 

 have rarely ever adopted the writings of other races. 



Naturally the Negroes are a home-keeping, unadventurous race, 

 neither war, commerce, or colonization ever having tempted them 

 voluntarily to pass their natural boundaries. In the American 

 States, where they are under restraint, the numbers keep pace with 

 that of the white population. In our own colonies, where they are 

 emancipated from slavery, their numbers decrease : thus, in Jamaica, 

 in 1833, the number of blacks emancipated was 310,000 ; in 1844, 

 the Negro population had fallen to 196,000. In Hayti, where the 

 Negroes have been their own masters for half a century, the popu- 

 lation is stationary. 



April 25. • 



On the Capacity of Animals for Domestication. — In a paper 

 read before the society, " On the Domestication of Animals in the 

 Middle Ages," a very important," but generally overlooked, distinc- 

 tion between the different degrees of capacity for domestication 

 was admirably stated. Animals may be classed as those capable of 

 complete domestication, those capable of imperfect domestication, 

 and those incapable of domestication. 



The first class is very limited in number; it includes those 

 animals which, when once reared by man, will not willingly leave 

 him, and, if they do so accidentally, will endeavour to return. 

 Among these are cows, sheep, horses, camels, dogs* poultry, and 

 pigeons. , 



The second group is also very limited in number, it includes 

 many animals that breed freely in confinement, but which, if they 



