80 Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



advanced in the arts of civilization, building wretched huts, but using 

 canoes, employing bows and arrows as implements of war, brave, 

 kind to each other, careful of their children, but extremely hostile to 

 strangers. Most that is known about them has been gathered from 

 the statements of two convict sepoys who escaped from the settle- 

 ment at Port Blair, but voluntarily returned after having lived some 

 time with the Andamaners. 



A short paper on the trade of New Guinea was read, and then 

 Sir R. Murchison called on Professor Owen to speak on the subject 

 of the natives of the Andaman Islands. He said that Dr. Mouat 

 had sent to him the only skeleton of an Andamaner that had ever 

 reached England. He had found it to be that of an adult male in 

 the prime of life, showing evidence, in the texture of the bones and 

 the development of their parts, of having belonged to an individual 

 who, though small of stature, must yet have been of accurate pro- 

 portion. He had been most interested in the examination of the 

 cranium, which he had expected to find allied to the Papuan or to 

 the Negro variety. He had found, however, that the skull exhibited 

 none of the characteristic peculiarities of the Papuan, and still less 

 of those of the Negro ; that it had no affinity with the Malay or the 

 Mongolian type of cranium : in fact, that with the exception of the 

 prognathous jaw-bones, in its classic oval and in its general propor- 

 tions, it was most nearly allied to the skull of a Caucasian. In the 

 course of his investigations some suggestions had presented them- 

 selves to him. Why is it necessary that, in determining the race to 

 which the inhabitants of detached groups of islands belong, we 

 should expect to find invariably that they are connected with the 

 inhabitants of conterminous continents P In the case of many of 

 these islands, particularly of Ceylon, it had been shown that the 

 geological age of the island was much earlier than that of the adja- 

 cent mainland. Why, then, might not the inhabitants of such groups 

 of islands be the descendants of races who had peopled continents 

 which no longer exist, but of which these islands are the remains, 

 and in comparison with which the present continents in the eons of 

 geologic history are of very recent date ? These are but suggestions. 

 One thing, however, is certain, that the Andamaners, from whomso- 

 ever they may be descended, are men just as much as the inhabitants 

 of any other portion of the globe, and that their frames are suited 

 to enable them fully to enjoy their life in the situation in which they 

 are found. 



Mr. J. Crawford, P.R.Gr.S., president of the Ethnological Society, 

 agreed with Professor Owen in what he had observed, and said that 

 he might state, from his own experience, that natives of the Andaman 

 Islands were capable of receiving training, and had been made very 

 good household servants. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY.— January 14. 



Habits and Structure of the Aye a:e. — Professor Owen read 

 an interesting description of the habits of that singular animal, the 



