CHAPTER VII. 



DISCUSSION OF THE DATA OF STATURE. 



Stature as a subject for inquiry. — Marriage Selection.— Issue of unlike 

 Parents. — Description of the Tables of Stature. Mid-Stature of the 

 Population. — Variability of the Population. — Variability of Mid- 

 Parents. — Variability in Co-Fraternities. — Regression : a, Filial ; 

 b, Mid-Parental ; c, Parental ; cl, Fraternal. — Squadrons of Statures. — 

 Successive Generations of a People. — Natural Selection. — Variability 

 in Fraternities. — Trustworthiness of the Constants. — General view of 

 Kinship. — Separate Contribution from each Ancestor. — Pedigree 

 Moths. 



Stature as a Subject for Inquiry. — The first of these 

 inquiries into the laws of human heredity deals with 

 hereditary Stature, which is an excellent subject for 

 statistics. Some of its merits are obvious enough, such 

 as the ease and frequency with which it may be measured, 

 its practical constancy during thirty-five or forty years 

 of middle life, its comparatively small dependence upon 

 differences of bringing up, and its inconsiderable influ- 

 ence on the rate of mortality. Other advantages which 

 are not equally obvious are equally great. One of these 

 is due to the fact that human stature is not a simple 

 element, but a sum of the accumulated lengths or 



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