1907. | On the Inheritance of Eye-colour in Man. 95 
The second memoir is that of Mr. Francis Galton.* Mr. Galton collected 
a number of records of family eye-colours in the British Isles, among the 
“ Records of Family Faculties ”—known as the R.F.F. data. These family 
records were obtained through the offer of prizes to the public.t 
From the family records sent in, Mr. Galton made three classes of eye- 
colours, “ light,” “hazel,” and “dark.” The “light” class included the shades 
recorded as “light blue,” “blue,” “dark blue,” “ grey,’ and “ blue-green.” 
The “ hazel” class included “dark grey” and “hazel.” The “dark” class included 
“black,” “ very dark brown,” “ dark brown,” “ brown,” and “ light brown.” Com- 
paring the shades of colour sent in to Mr. Galton by his correspondents with 
mine, it is evident that all of Mr. Galton’s “dark” class belong to the duplex 
type with anterior pigment. With regard to the “hazel ” class, part of these 
would probably represent my ringed duplex pattern, while the remainder 
might belong either to the duplex or simplex type, according to the inter- 
pretations of the colours by different observers. Mr. Galton apparently 
regards “dark grey” and “ hazel” as bicolour eyes,f which would make them 
practically equivalent to my ringed duplex eyes. In view, however, of my 
experience with popular descriptions of eye-colours, it is highly probable that 
many of Mr. Galton’s correspondents would record certain forms of self- 
coloured duplex eyes as “hazel,” and certain forms of “simplex” eyes as 
“dark grey.” Mr. Galton’s “light” class would apparently consist partly of 
the simplex type without anterior pigment, and partly of the low-grade forms 
of the duplex type with some anterior pigment. In the nature of the circum- 
stances in which the R.F.F. data were recorded, it cannot, of course, be 
expected that the observations were critical in regard to the presence or 
absence of anterior pigment in the iris. On the whole, therefore, it does not 
seem possible to express either de Candolle’s or Mr. Galton’s classes and 
shades of eye-colours in terms of duplex and simplex pigmentation. It was 
on Mr. Galton’s R.F.F. data that Professor Karl Pearson based his memoir 
“On the Inheritance of Eye-colour in Man,’§ and afterwards concluded that 
nothing corresponding to Mendel’s principles appeared in the characters for 
eye-colour in man.| 
* “Family Likeness in Eye-colour,” ‘Roy. Soc. Proc.,’ 1886, vol. 40, No. 245, 
pp. 402—416. 
t See ‘ Natural Inheritance,’ 1889, pp. 72—78. 
t Loe. cit., pp. 142, 144. 
§ ‘ Phil. Trans.,’ A, 1900, vol. 195, p. 102. 
|| ‘ Biometrika,’ 1903, vol. 2, pp. 213, 214. 
