Scientific Proceedings. 



(i95) 25 



13 male Negritos, none was color blind. Special interest attaches 

 to the Negritos, as they probably represent a more primitive type 

 of man than has previously been tested in this way ; and though 

 the individuals examined were too few in number to enable the 

 author to establish the percentage of color-blindness among them, 

 the absence of color-blindness from the 13 males tested (as well 

 as from the women) shows certainly that color-blindness is not 

 universal among them, and very likely no more prevalent than 

 among more developed races. On the whole a negative conclu- 

 sion is warranted as to the suggestion that the color sense has 

 developed, within human history, from anything approaching red- 

 green blindness. 



Quite a different hypothesis has been advanced by certain anthro- 

 pologists from a study of the color names of primitive languages. 

 While all languages have names for red, and most of them also for 

 yellow, comparatively few have definite names for green, blue, or 

 violet. Even in European languages, the names of these latter colors 

 seem to be a rather recent acquisition. The suggestion is that color 

 vision was first developed for the red end of the spectrum, the rest 

 remaining colorless at first, and only gradually taking on the 

 appearance of green and blue, and that this development has oc- 

 curred during human history. In testing the natives of Torres 

 Straits, who have no name of their own for blue, Rivers obtained 

 a certain amount of evidence in favor of this view, in that these 

 people were somewhat less sensitive to faint tints of blue than 

 Europeans, though rather more sensitive to red. As the Filipinos 

 also have no native words for green, blue and violet, the authors 

 tested them as to their power of discriminating these colors. The 

 test employed called for the matching of dark shades of several 

 colors with pale tints of the same. Colored papers were used ; 

 the tints were spread out in spectral order, and each dark shade 

 was to be matched with the tint with which it agreed in color. 

 The authors found that the Filipinos, and indeed all other races 

 examined, were inferior to whites in this test ; but it was impos- 

 sible to detect any special deficiency for the greens, blues and violets. 

 These colors were relatively as well matched as the reds, and better 

 than the yellows. Nor was there any tendency, except among 

 the Igorots, to confuse blue, green or violet with neutral gray. 



