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Show 220 THE DESCENT OF MAN. PART li. were darker coloured and appeared different from those proper to the natives of Chiloe in South America of which he gave me specimens. These, again, appe:red larger and much softer than European lice. Mr. Murray procured four kinds from Africa, namely from the Negroes of the Eastern and Western coasts, from the Hottentots and Caffres; two kinds from the natives of Australia ; two fi·om North, and two from South America. In these latter cases it may be presumed t~at _the Pedi~uli ?arne from natives inhabiting different districts. W1th msects slight structural differences, if constant, are generally esteemed of specific value: and the fact of the races of man beinO' infested by parasites h. h 0 ' '" IC appear to be specifically distinct, might fairly be urged as an argument that the races themselves ought to be classed as distinct species. . O~r .supp~sed. naturalist having proceeded thus fa:r m Ius mvest1gatwn, would next inquire whether the ~·aces ~f men, when crossed, were in any degree sterile. He ~mght consult the work 9 of a cautious and philosoplucal observer, Professor Broca ; and in this he would find good evide:we that some races were quite fertile together; but evidence of an opposite nature in regard to other races. Thus it has been asserted that the native wo.men of Australia and Tasmania rarely produce ch~ldren to European men; the evidence, hOYvever, on t~11 S head has now been shewn to be almost valueless. 'Ihe half-castes are killed by the pure blacks; and an account has lately been published of eleven half-caste yout~s murdered and burnt at the same time, whose remams were found by the police.10 Again, it bas often 9 'On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo' En"' tt-anslat. 1864. ' o· 10 See tl.w i~tere~ting letter by Mr. T. A. Murray, in the 'Authropolog. ReVlew, Apnl, 1868, p. liii. In this letter Count Strzelecki's CHAP. VII. THE RACES OF MAN. 221 been said that when mulattoes intermarry they produce few children ; on the other band, Dt·. Bachman of Charlestown 11 positively asserts that he has known mulatto families which have intermarried for several generations, and have continued on an average as fertile as either pure whites or pure blacks. Inquiries formerly made by Sir C. Lyell on this subject led him, as he informs me, to the same conclusion. In the United States the censns for the year 1854 included, according to Dr. Bachman, 405,751 mulattoes; and this number, considering all the circumstances of the case, seems small ; but it may partly be accounted for by the degraded and anomalous position of the class, and by the profligacy of the women. A certain amount of absorption of mulattoes into negroes must always be in progress; and this would lead to an apparent diminution of the former. The inferior vitality of mulattoes is spoken of in a trustworthy work 12 as a well-known phenomenon ; but this is a different consideration from their lessened fertility; and can hardly be advanced as o. proof of the specific distinctness of the parent races. No doubt both animal and vegetable hybrids, when produced from extremely distinct species, are liable to premature death ; but the parents of mulattoes cannot be put under the category of extremely distinct species. The common l\'lnle, so notorious for long life and vigour, and yet so sterile, shews how little necessary connection statement, that Australian women who have borne chiluren to a white man are afterwards sterile with their own race, is disproved. M. A. de Quatrefages has also collected ('Revue des Cours Scientifiques,' March, 1869, p. 239) much evidence that Australians and Europeans are not sterile when crossed. u 'An Examination of Prof. Agassiz's Sketch of the Nat. Provinces of the Animal World,' Charleston, 1855, p. 44. 12 'Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers,' by B. A. Gould, 1869, p. 319. |
