familiaris [Greek: i]. C. cauda (sinistrorsum) recurvata….
domesticus [Greek: a]. auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata.
sagax [Greek: b]. auriculis pendulis, digito spurio ad
tibias posticas.
grajus [Greek: g]. magnitudine lupi, trunco curvato, rostro
attenuato, &c. &c.
Linnaeus' definition of what he considers to be mere varieties of the species Man are, it will be observed, as completely free from any allusion to linguistic peculiarities as those brief and pregnant sentences in which he sketches the characters of the varieties of the species Dog. "Pilis nigris, naribus patulis" may be set against "auriculis erectis, cauda subtus lanata;" while the remarks on the morals and manners of the human subject seem as if they were thrown in merely by way of makeweight.
Buffon, Blumenbach (the founder of ethnology as a special science), Rudolphi, Bory de St. Vincent, Desmoulins, Cuvier, Retzius, indeed I may say all the naturalists proper, have dealt with man from a no less completely zoological point of view; while, as might have been expected, those who have been least naturalists, and most linguists, have most neglected the zoological method, the neglect culminating in those who have been altogether devoid of acquaintance with anatomy.
Prichard's proposition, that language is more persistent than physical characters, is one which has never been proved, and indeed admits of no proof, seeing that the records of language do not extend so far as those of physical characters. But, until the superior tenacity of linguistic over physical peculiarities is shown, and until the abundant evidence which exists, that the language of a people may change without corresponding physical change in that people, is shown to be valueless, it is plain that the zoological court of appeal is the highest for the ethnologist, and that no evidence can be set against that derived from physical characters.
What, then, will a new survey of mankind from the Linnaean point of view teach us?
The great antipodal block of land we call Australia has, speaking roughly, the form of a vast quadrangle, 2,000 miles on the side, and extends from the hottest tropical, to the middle of the temperate, zone. Setting aside the foreign colonists introduced within the last century, it is inhabited by people no less remarkable for the uniformity, than for the singularity, of their physical characters and social state. For the most part of fair stature, erect and well built, except for an unusual slenderness of the lower limbs, the AUSTRALIANS have dark, usually chocolate-coloured skins; fine dark wavy hair; dark eyes, overhung by beetle brows; coarse, projecting jaws; broad and dilated, but not especially flattened, noses; and lips which, though prominent, are eminently flexible.
The skulls of these people are always long and narrow, with a smaller development of the frontal sinuses than usually corresponds with such largely developed brow ridges. An Australian skull of a round form, or one the transverse diameter of which exceeds eight-tenths of its length, has never been seen. These people, in a word, are eminently "dolichocephalic," or long-headed; but, with this one limitation, their crania present considerable variations, some being comparatively high and arched, while others are more remarkably depressed than almost any other human skulls.