8 
Ages. The missionaries had records of the dates of birth of most of 
the children of 20 years and under; and to these records they very kindly 
gave me full access. The ages of the children at Oxford House are accu- 
rately given, but we can vouch for the accuracy of only about 60 or 70 
per cent of those at Island lake, as we were unable in a number of cases 
to obtain the parents’ names and these were necessary for the identification 
of the children. The ages of the adults and of the old people are only 
approximate; the age each volunteered to give — provided it seemed a 
reasonable one — was accepted. 
Grouping. We considered separating the individuals of the three 
bands into those we deemed to be pure Indian and into those of diluted 
blood, but it soon became apparent that such an attempt at sifting 
would meet with serious difficulties, for had, say, the colour of the eye 
(iris) been relied upon as a distinguishing trait, and everyone with light 
brown and with grey eyes been regarded as breeds, we would clearly — since 
grey is here recessive to brown — have placed in one category a grey-eyed 
individual and in another his many medium and dark-brown-eyed brothers 
and sisters, and perhaps even his parents. The results of such an attempt 
are shown in a correlation table on page 17. 
We have in table V, page 28, grouped these people separately accord- 
ing to the dialect they spoke and have recorded the chief average pro- 
portions and indices of each group. But, on the whole, it seemed wiser 
not to restore the various migrants we were able to trace, to the localities 
either they or their parents had come from, but to deal with each individual 
as though he were a native of the region in which we found him. And, 
although this method of regional grouping has been adopted, it is to be under- 
stood that in each locality there are, as one would naturally suspect, a 
number of individuals who have migrated from each of the other localities 
and who have married into the local bands. 
ABBREVIATIONS 
I.L. refers to Island lake. 
G.L. “ Gods lake. 
O.H. Oxford House. 
The numbers in brackets in the text are the serial numbers of indi- 
viduals referred to, and if the appropriate appendix on page 58 et seq. be 
consulted, full details of these individuals will be found. 
In the Frequency Distribution Tables : 
P.E. 
Diff. 
Mean refers to 
average. 
standard deviation, 
probable error of the mean, 
coefficient of variation. 
Number of cases examined, 
diff. refers to probable error of the difference. 
the numerical difference between two measurements. 
a 
E, 
V 
N 
(( 
({ 
(t 
