THE ABORIGINES OF TASMANIA. 



341 



was dried and with the cutis imperfect, the form and direction of the follicle with its 

 contained hair could not be precisely denned, but from the character of the hair itself 

 there can, I think, be no doubt that the follicles and the contained hair were curved, 

 as is the case in the Negro, and, as has been shown by Fritsch, in other Ulotrichi — 

 Melanesians, Papuans, Hottentots, and Bantus. 



3. The cortex formed the essential constituent of the Tasmanian hair shaft. 

 Sometimes no medulla was present ; but, as a rule, the axis of the hair consisted of a 

 band of dark-coloured medulla, which might be either continuous or in fragments. 



Fig. 31. — Tasmanian. 



Fig. 32.— Bush. 



The twist in the individual hairs occurred more frequently in a given length of the 

 shaft in a woolly hair, as in the Bush, than in the same length of the frizzly-haired 

 Tasmanian (figs. 31, 32). 



4. The hair index in the Tasmanians, 63 to 68, was higher than is found generally 

 in those Ulotrichi who are markedly woolly. In the specimens measured in this 

 memoir the following average indices were obtained : — Negro, 53 ; Bush and Hottentot, 

 each 50 ; Kaffir, 52. Of the Negritos the index in the Semang was 50 ; in the 

 Andaman Islander, 61. 



5. The Melanesian natives of New Guinea and the New Hebrides had a higher 

 hair index, which reached 70 in the Papuans and 73 in the New Hebrideans. They 

 approximated in this respect more closely to the Tasmanians than to the Negroes. 

 So far as the maximum breadth of the hair shaft affected its texture and gave to it 

 a relatively coarse character, the Papuans, New Hebrideans, and Tasmanians reached 

 '09 and '08 mm., whilst in the proper negroid races '07 mm. was the maximum 

 measured. 



6. It has been generally recognised that in the Australian aborigines the hair 



had the distinctive character of the Leiotrichi ; either straight or wavy, and 

 TRANS. ROY. SOC. EDIN., VOL. L. PART II. (NO. 10). 47 



