INFESTING THE DIFFERENT RACES OF MAN. 571 
accord with its less scansorial mode of life, which requires less powerful appli- 
ances for seizing and tenaciously retaining hold of the hairs through which it 
passes. The concurrent opinion of those who are practically familiar with the 
animals and their habits also confirms the view that they are distinct species. 
I remember the remark of a young private soldier on his return, wounded, 
from the Crimea, who, in speaking of the sufferings of the troops before Sebas- 
topol, dwelt upon the annoyance experienced from these parasites ; and in reply 
to some suggestion of mine as to the specific virtues of a small-toothed comb, 
which I believed formed part of a soldier’s necessaries, answered, “Oh! we did 
not mind the head ones ; it was the body ones,’”—thus implying a clear and well 
recognised distinction between the two in power of annoyance. We have thus 
two scarcely decipherable species infesting the same race; and when we receive 
specimens from a foreign race, we are subjected to the disadvantage of being 
unable positively to say to which of these two kinds they belong. In all but one 
or two instances, however, I have, I think, been able to refer the specimens 
received to their proper kind; and if in these instances I have failed to do so, 
still this can scarcely affect the result to which I have come, because, in the first 
place, the very similarity which prevents me distinguishing between them with 
certainty, renders a misplacement of less consequence, and, in the next place, an 
error in one or two only out of several cannot have any material effect on the 
general result, so far as the inquiry into the existence of different species or 
different races is concerned. . 
I annex at the close of this paper a detailed description of the differences 
which I have found between the specimens from the different races and locali- 
ties, and shall briefly notice their general tenor, and the bearing they have 
upon the main question which I propose to solve. 
First, is there really any difference at all in the specimens from different 
races ? i 
As to colour, I find there is a considerable difference. The coloured races 
of man have correspondingly coloured parasites. Those of the West African negro 
and Australian are nearly black; those of the Hindu, dark and dusky; those of the 
Africander and Hottentot, orange; of the Chinese and Japanese, yellowish brown ; 
of the Indians of the Andes, dark brown ; of the Californian Indians, dusky olive; 
and those of the more northern Indians, near the Esquimaux, paler, approaching 
to the light colour of the parasites of the European. 
As to form, there is not much scope for difference. In other insects, the dif- 
ference between species of the same genus chiefly consists in the sculpture upon 
the body and in the different form of some of its parts; but in the Pediculi, the 
body being soft, there is not much room for sculpture. It has a certain kind of 
wrinkled sculpture approaching to the texture which gives mother of pearl its 
iridescent lustre; and from this cause, in certain lights under the microscope, 
VOL. XXII. PART III. 7H 
