1844.] The Osteologij of the Elephant 919 



the foregoing:— and why? The plate is a pictorial plagiarism on one 

 of Captain Mundy's " Pencil Sketches," which has however under- 

 gone the change which Sheridan somewhere says is effected by li- 

 terary appropriators on their pilfered ideas, " they treat them, as 

 gipsies do stolen children, disfigure them, that they may pass for their 

 own." Here we have the ankle joints so prominent, and placed so 

 high up the legs, as to assume all the appearance of hocks — the tail 

 absurdly short, and the under outline of the body perfectly straight, 

 whereas it should descend rapidly from the elbow joint of the fore 

 leg to the knee of the hind one. 



Queries respecting the Human Race, to be addressed to Tra- 

 vellers and others. Drawn up by a Committee of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, appointed in 1 Hb9, 

 and circulated by the Ethnographical Society of London. 



[The Editors have thought this paper of so much importance that they have lost no 

 time in re-printing it, as pointing out to so many residents in India a kind of know- 

 ledge which they may so easily acquire and communicate, and which offers so many 

 points of interest to every thinking mind. The more savage races of India from the 

 Veddas of Ceylon to the Goands and the races of the Terraes, with the Singphos and 

 Kariens of our Eastern Frontiers, to say nothing of the Coles, Dhangurs, Sontals and 

 Goomsoor tribes, and many others, all offer fields of research, from which, undoubtedly, 

 many scientific laurels are to be gathered, and eventually much useful knowledge 

 and many humane results may arise. — Eds.] 



At the meeting of the British Association held at Birmingham, 

 Dr. Prichard read a paper " On the Extinction of some varieties of 

 the Human Race." He pointed out instances in which this extinc- 

 tion had already taken place to a great extent, and showed that 

 many races now existing are likely, at no distant period, to be anni- 

 hilated. He pointed out the irretrievable loss which science must 

 sustain, if so large a portion of the human race, counting by tribes 

 instead of individuals, is suffered to perish, before many interesting 

 questions of a psychological, physiological and philological character, as 

 well as many historical facts in relation to them, have been inves- 

 tigated. Whence he argued that science, as well as humanity, i3 

 interested in the efforts which are made to rescue them, and to pre- 

 serve from oblivion many important details connected with them. 



At the suggestion of the Natural Historical Section, to which Dr. 

 Prichard's paper was read, the Association voted the sum of £5 to be 



