1903-4.] Mr N. Annandale on the People of the Faroes. 15 
features 1 more marked, and especially a more pronounced promi- 
nence, often combined with a tendency to be hooked, of the nose, 
than the majority of their fellow islanders. 
It is probable that the twenty persons examined give a very fair 
•approximation, at any rate as far as the island of Stromoe is con- 
cerned, to the general colour of the hair and eyes of the Faroemen, 
but the series of observations is not sufficiently extensive to permit 
the calculation of a percentage index of nigrescence on Beddoe’s 
system (4). They show, however, that while the great proportion of 
the people have light eyes and light or neutral hair, there is a 
distinct dark element among them, which, as Dr Jprgensen has 
shown, and as Landt (5) had anticipated, is more pronounced in 
Suderoe than in the northern islands of the group. The danger of 
■drawing conclusions, however, regarding this point is well illus- 
trated by a fact in the history of a family living near Thorshavn. 
Several members of this family are very dark indeed, and have 
almost an Oriental appearance, which I was inclined, before I 
knew their history, to put down as due to an extreme development 
among them of the dark type that occurs sporadically in all 
•Scandinavian countries, and is far from uncommon in the Faroes 
and Iceland. Quite incidentally, however, I learnt that the grand- 
mother of the present head of the family came from somewhere in 
Eastern Europe, and that her grandchildren took after her. It 
would seem, on prima facie evidence, that hardly any place in the 
world was more unlikely to harbour an Oriental European than the 
Faroes, but facts are liable to run counter to evidence of the kind, 
and it is, moreover, certain that this unlikely importation, who was 
met by her husband when both were being educated, I believe in 
Switzerland, has proved, in zoological language, prepotent, and 
may conceivably have an ultimate effect on the population of the 
Faroes, though, the present head of the family having married an 
Icelander, also met in the course of education, the problem becomes 
<even more complicated. I may also say that this family is one 
which prides itself on keeping up the old customs of the Faroes, 
though some people in Thorshavn have told me that the conspicuous 
1 Some excellent photographs of Faroemen are reproduced in a paper just 
published by Dr Burmeister Norburg ( Globus , vol. lxxxiv., 1903, Ho. 14, 
pp. 219-222). Oct. 29. 
