[279] Serranus is well known often to be in an hermaphrodite condition; but Dr. Günther informs me that he is convinced that this is not its normal state. Descent from an ancient androgynous prototype would, however, naturally favour and explain, to a certain extent, the recurrence of this condition in these fishes.
[280] Mr. Lockwood believes (as quoted in ‘Quart. Journal of Science,’ April, 1868, p. 269), from what he has observed of the development of Hippocampus, that the walls of the abdominal pouch of the male in some way afford nourishment. On male fishes hatching the ova in their mouths, see a very interesting paper by Prof. Wyman, in ‘Proc. Boston Soc. of Nat. Hist.’ Sept. 15, 1857; also Prof. Turner, in ‘Journal of Anat. and Phys.’ Nov. 1, 1866, p. 78. Dr. Günther has likewise described similar cases.
[281] All vital functions tend to run their course in fixed and recurrent periods, and with tidal animals the periods would probably be lunar; for such animals must have been left dry or covered deep with water,—supplied with copious food or stinted,—during endless generations, at regular lunar intervals. If then the Vertebrata are descended from an animal allied to the existing tidal Ascidians, the mysterious fact, that with the higher and now terrestrial Vertebrata, not to mention other classes, many normal and abnormal vital processes run their course according to lunar periods, is rendered intelligible. A recurrent period, if approximately of the right duration, when once gained, would not, as far as we can judge, be liable to be changed; consequently it might be thus transmitted during almost any number of generations. This conclusion, if it could be proved sound, would be curious; for we should then see that the period of gestation in each mammal, and the hatching of each bird’s eggs, and many other vital processes, still betrayed the primordial birthplace of these animals.
[282] ‘History of India,’ 1841, vol. i. p. 323. Father Ripa makes exactly the same remark with respect to the Chinese.
[283] A vast number of measurements of Whites, Blacks, and Indians, are given in the ‘Investigations in the Military and Anthropolog. Statistics of American Soldiers,’ by B. A. Gould, 1869, p. 298-358; on the capacity of the lungs, p. 471. See also the numerous and valuable tables, by Dr. Weisbach, from the observations of Dr. Scherzer and Dr. Schwarz, in the ‘Reise der Novara: Anthropolog. Theil,’ 1867.
[284] See, for instance, Mr. Marshall’s account of the brain of a Bush-woman, in ‘Phil. Transact.’ 1864, p. 519.
[285] Wallace, ‘The Malay Archipelago,’ vol. ii. 1869, p. 178.
[286] With respect to the figures in the famous Egyptian caves of Abou-Simbel, M. Pouchet says (‘The Plurality of the Human Races,’ Eng. translat. 1864, p. 50), that he was far from finding recognisable representations of the dozen or more nations which some authors believe that they can recognise. Even some of the most strongly-marked races cannot be identified with that degree of unanimity which might have been expected from what has been written on the subject. Thus Messrs. Nott and Gliddon (‘Types of Mankind,’ p. 148) state that Rameses II., or the Great, has features superbly European; whereas Knox, another firm believer in the specific distinction of the races of man (‘Races of Man,’ 1850, p. 201), speaking of young Memnon (the same person with Rameses II., as I am informed by Mr. Birch) insists in the strongest manner that he is identical in character with the Jews of Antwerp. Again, whilst looking in the British Museum with two competent judges, officers of the establishment, at the statue of Amunoph III., we agreed that he had a strongly negro cast of features; but Messrs. Nott and Gliddon (ibid. p. 146, fig. 53) describe him as “a hybrid, but not of negro intermixture.”
[287] As quoted by Nott and Gliddon, ‘Types of Mankind,’ 1854, p. 439. They give also corroborative evidence; but C. Vogt thinks that the subject requires further investigation.
[288] “Diversity of Origin of the Human Races,” in the ‘Christian Examiner,’ July, 1850.