88 NATURAL INHERITANCE. [chap. 



dividing (see Table 9) the male and female parents re- 

 spectively into three nearly equal groups, of tall, medium, 

 and short. It was impracticable to make them precisely 

 equal, on account of the roughness with which the 

 measurements were recorded, so I framed rules that 

 seemed best adapted to the case. Consequently the 

 numbers of the tall and short proved to be only ap- 

 proximately and not exactly equal, and the two together 

 were only approximately equal to the medium cases. 

 The final results were : — 32 instances where one parent 

 was short and the other tall, and 27 where both were 

 short or both were tall. In other words, there were 32 

 cases of contrast in marriage, to 27 cases of likeness. 

 I do not regard this difference as of consequence, 

 because the numbers are small, and because a slight 

 change in the limiting values assigned to shortness and 

 tallness, would have a sensible effect upon the result. 

 I am therefore content to ignore it, and to regard the 

 Statures of married folk just as if their choice in mar- 

 riage had been wholly independent of stature. The 

 importance of this supposition in facilitating calculation 

 will be appreciated as we proceed. 



Issue of Unlike Parents. — We will next discuss the 

 question whether the Stature of the issue of unlike 

 parents betrays any notable evidence of their unlikeness, 

 or whether the peculiarities of the children do not rather 

 depend on the average of two values ; one the Stature 

 of the father, and the other the transmuted Stature 

 of the mother ; in other words, on the Stature of 



