400 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
dismissal. Even journalism has referred to the connection 
between land and man, and a writer in the ‘St. James’s Gazette’ 
(January 6th, 1881) on the London Clay remarks :—“ In the old 
days all London lay upon the few scattered patches of pleistocene 
gravel which here and there cap the surface, because it was only’ 
on the gravel that water could be obtained from springs or wells. 
Hence the original development of the suburbs, as Prof. Prest- 
wich has pointed out, followed with unerring precision the zig-zag 
course of the pleistocene tracts.” ‘‘In Caithness the best 
cereals, cattle, and men were raised on the boulder clay, and 
where it was wanting, the corn, cattle, and men were miserable.’’* 
Frank Buckland states :—‘‘ The geological formation of a district 
I found, in examining recruits for the regiment, has considerable 
effect upon the stature of its inhabitants; coal-producing counties, 
as a rule, generally grow the tallest, and, at the same time, the 
largest-boned men.” + 
But although facts may be found to support new suggestions, 
such as a possible original assimilative colouration of man, the 
quest ae such produces other recorded observations, which, 
though not altogether contradictory to the view, still point to 
other causes, support other conclusions, and reassert the problem 
we seek to solve. Thus we find indications of the influence of 
food in human colouration. The ship “Strathmore” was wrecked 
upon one of the rocks of the ‘Twelve Apostles,” an island in 
the Crozet group, on July 1st, 1875, and the survivors of the 
passengers and crew, before being rescued, remained there for a 
period of six months and twenty-two days. Of the events that 
occurred during that time we have the narrative of Mrs. Words- 
worth and her son. Speaking of a period four months subsequent 
to the wreck, and when Penguins’ eggs had begun to furnish the 
castaways with ample food, Mrs. Wordsworth remarks :—‘‘ The 
eggs did everyone a great deal of good; those who had been 
* Cleghorn, ‘ Anthropological Review,’ 1868, No. 20, p. xxi. 
+ ‘Curiosities Nat. Hist.,’ popular edition, 4th series, p. 9.—A similar 
observation is recorded by Mr. Atmore in South African ornithology :—‘‘ The 
Rock-chat (Saaicola cinerea) is abundant in the Karroo—and, by the way, 
how well this class of birds obeys the geology of the country; wherever 
there is Karroo soil you find them. The same also with the ‘ Kalkvent-je’ 
(Macronyx capensis), which is found in every patch of grass country, but 
never in Karroo soil” (Layard’s ‘ Birds 8. Africa,’ Sharpe’s edition, p. 242), 
