No. 33, — 1880.] the veddAs of ceylon. 



427 



will not go quite so far as to declare outright that it is a 

 Tamil skull, but it may have belonged to a bastard, and 

 the fact (already mentioned) that the skull No. 316, from 

 Mr. Davis's collection, which is distinctly marked as that of 

 a hybrid of Malabar and Sinhalese, corresponds with this one 

 almost entirely in the indices (ratio of length and breadth 

 77, of length and height 78), speaks strongly in favour of the 

 assumption. It would seem at least wiser for the present to 

 exclude it from the collection. But I may at the same time 

 add that the same reasons may be urged against the admission 

 of the skull No. 980, from Mr. Davis. This has a ratio of length 

 and breadth 76, and an index of height 84, although it 

 belonged to a senile individual, with total disappearance of 

 the alveolar processes. If then we withdraw this, as well 

 as my skull No. 3, there remains tolerably homogeneous 

 material, which offers great probability that it fairly corres- 

 ponds to the typical conditions. To the support of this view 

 the fact is of value, that the drawings which Davy, and even 

 those which Sandifort has given, coincide not only with 

 those I have furnished (Table II.), but also, in the main, 

 with all the other descriptions and measurements. Neverthe- 

 less I am sorry to say that the existing material is nowise suffi- 

 cient to enable us to decide all the questions. The absence 

 of the lower jaw in all my skulls is a very serious loss, and 

 the senile condition, as well as the extensive synosteosis of 

 one of the two apparently pure skulls (No. 2), makes even the 

 use of this, in regard to all the points in which it varies, 

 questionable. Even the third still remaining skull (No. 1) 

 is not free from great and plainly individual aberrations, for 

 it not only shows, in spite of the youth of its owner, very 

 numerous obliterations, but also on either side a large pro- 

 cessus frontalis squama? temporalis. 



This discussion is in the highest degree instructive, as 

 showing how unsafe it is to make race definitions on the 

 ground of single, or of a few skulls, and how necessary it is, 

 especially for such complicated ethnological conditions as 



