of certain Ancient British Skull Forms. 69 
it may be ascribed with much probability to the indirect 
results of designed or accidental compression in infancy ; 
and by its frequent occurrence in any uniform aspect, may, 
quite as much as the flattened occiput, furnish a clue to 
customs or modes of nurture among the people to whom it 
pertains. 
Dr Struthers of Edinburgh has in his collection an in- 
teresting example of a modern skull, measuring 7:5 longi- 
tudinal diameter, 6°5 parietal diameter, 21:4 horizontal cir- 
cumference, in which the truncated form is even more 
strongly marked by the abrupt flattening, immediately be- 
hind the parietal protuberances, accompanied with inequa- 
lity in the two sides of the head. It was obtained from a 
grave-digger in Dundee, who stated it to be that of a middle- 
aged female, whom he had known during life. There was 
nothing particular about her mental development. 
I have also drawn attention in former papers to the fact 
that such peculiar forms and examples of inequality in the 
development of the two sides of the head are familiar to hat- 
manufacturers. Occasionally the eye is attracted by very 
unusual cranial forms revealed by baldness; but the hair 
suffices generally to conceal abnormal irregularities, some 
of which, as illustrated by hatters’ shapes, are extremely 
odd and fantastical. My attention was directed to this 
familiar test by a remark of the late Dr Kombst, that he 
had never been able to obtain an English-made hat that 
would fit his head. He added, that he believed such was 
the general experience of Germans, owing to the greater 
length of the English head. I subsequently found the 
shapes of a Yorkshire hatter to be shorter than some fur- 
nished me from Dublin; while English and Anglo-Canadian 
ones are decidedly longer than those of the French Canadians 
of Lower Canada; and I believe that comparisons of the 
shapes most in demand in different parts of the British 
Islands, and on the Continent, will supply important cranio- 
logical results. 
The novel forms thus occurring in modern heads, though 
chiefly traceable, as I believe, to artificial causes, are not 
the result of design. But the same is true of the prevalent 
vertical and obliquely flattened occiput of many ancient and 
