Chapter III: Part 3

The alligator is at best an awkward brute. Slow and ungainly upon land--although even there his powerful tail can, when necessary, assist the scuffling paws to an astonishing extent if the creature is in haste--he shows to better advantage in the water. There he turns his clumsy body with wonderful dexterity and swiftness, when, at the sight of a swimming muskrat or a wading dog, he instantly changes from what has resembled a drifting log idly floating upon the calm surface of the swamp, into a thing of life--fierce and horrible.

The general food of an alligator is fish, turtles, and frogs, with an occasional heedless dog or fowl. A number of adult alligators will quickly deplenish a small, clear-water lake of its finny inhabitants, which statement to would-be Florida fishermen will readily account for the lack in many localities. There is also a curious belief in the South that the creature has an especial liking for a "darkey steak," and for this reason he is feared by the negroes. That he becomes carnivorous to a dangerous extent when pressed by hunger, there is no doubt, for, the supply of fish exhausted, he must look for larger game.

Partially concealed by rubbish, or floating idly close to the bank--always only a short distance from his retreat--he so closely resembles an old and weather-worn log that no suspicion is aroused. Presently a razorback comes down the narrow trail that meanders through the scrub and passes close to the reptile. Let it pass between the alligator and the water--that is, between the creature and his _cave_--and the end has come. An alligator seldom misses, and one spring, leap, or plunge, or whatever the swift, clumsy movement may be called, and the wretched animal is seized and held fast, either by the nose or leg, as a rule. Then the struggle begins, for the razorback loves its life, despised pig of the Florida flatwoods though it is.

Alligators drown their prey. Their own nostrils and throats are so arranged that they themselves can sink to the bottom without danger of suffocation, although their mouths, or rather their jaws, may be widely stretched with the body of their victim. Indeed, they can reascend to the surface to breathe without releasing the prize; and, as this power is so closely connected with their method of killing the larger animals, a description of the latter, repulsive though it is, may not be out of place.

The teeth of an alligator are better adapted for crushing and crunching than for biting. Therefore, for him to eat a struggling animal would be difficult. Instinct teaches him that it must first be killed.

To dispose of a dog or a chicken is a small matter, for when the alligator meets it upon the bank one strong, far-reaching sweep of the powerful tail tosses it far out upon the lake. The alligator simply follows, grasps the half-stunned creature in his jaws, and disappears beneath the surface, where he remains until all is quiet. With a larger animal, however, he proceeds differently, for the reason that a yearling, a colt, or a razorback is not so easily handled. First, therefore, a description of an alligator's cave must be given, since it is to this grewsome retreat that the hideous brute takes his booty.

Selecting some spot where the water is deep--usually beneath some overhanging bank--an alligator excavates what is called a "cave." Any one, standing upon the border of a lake or swamp in Florida, may, all unconsciously, be directly over one of these places. He makes it sufficiently large to accommodate one or more of his kind, by dragging out the mud and roots with the strong claws or nails that arm his fore paws or legs. These "caves" serve in winter for hibernation, and at other times for the purpose that will be explained.

Once in the water, then--to return to the unhappy razorback--the alligator does not rely wholly upon his teeth and jaws to hold the desperate animal. He can not yet sink, for the victim is too strong. It must first be drowned, and a furious struggle for the mastery then begins.

By degrees the brute finally succeeds in dragging the animal out into water sufficiently deep to suit his purpose, and then he clasps it firmly with his paws, precisely like the hugging of a bear. He then begins to roll over and over. Now beneath the surface, now out, he turns and turns, first the alligator uppermost, then his prey, alternately, until the poor animal is drowned literally by inches. Before long the razorback weakens, his struggles lessen, and then the alligator sinks to the bottom, and when all motion has ceased he deposits the body in his cave, well pleased with the prospect of a full larder for some time to come.

One might naturally ask just here whether or not this scene would be the same were a human being the victim. The reply would be--precisely.

The alligator undoubtedly prefers his food in a partly decomposed condition, although it is an undecided point whether this preference arises from a natural taste, or for the reason that food in that state is softer and more easily torn apart. Whichever may be the case, Nature unasked supplies the remedy, and the alligator takes advantage of her assistance, and deposits his victim in his hiding place, confident that at the proper time it will rise to the surface in the condition best adapted to his needs.

Although by nature the alligator is amphibious, he passes the greater part of his time upon land during the breeding season. At such times, also, he migrates from one clear-water lake or swamp to another, should he not find a mate in his own locality, and he may not infrequently be met in his overland journeyings. Alligators are not strictly gregarious, although large numbers are found in the same body of water; while, on the contrary, there will often be but one or two that will haunt a certain tract for a long period.

During this season the bull alligator is very noisy, and his deep bellowing may be heard for a long distance. To state that this noise causes the ground to vibrate may seem an exaggeration, but the fact may easily be proved by visiting a swamp where the reptiles have congregated. The water in the vicinity will plainly show the jarring of the ground.

This bellow is a thundering, rumbling sound; and when it is combined with the startling hisses, blowings, sighs, and deep-breathed snorts which the creature can produce at will, no one will be likely to dispute that his collection of diabolical noises is quite complete.

During the period of incubation the female alligator is a devoted mother. She does not desert her nest from the time that the eggs are laid until they are hatched--lying concealed in the scrub close by--and she is naturally, at this time, most dangerous to approach, although her vigilance does not always save a portion of her unhatched progeny from the numerous enemies that have a fondness for alligator omelet.

The nest is a large, well-rounded heap or mound, composed of sand and rubbish, which she drags and pushes together with her claws. Throughout this mound she deposits her eggs, from forty to seventy and over. These eggs resemble those of a goose, only that they are larger; they have a thick, tough shell, and are of about the same size at both ends. In about sixty days, the heat of the sun, combined with the warmth and moisture generated by the fermentation of the rubbish, completes the process of incubation, and the little ones begin to come forth.

Forcing their way through the sand, they hurry down the sloping sides of the mound, straightway seeking the water by instinct. While these baby 'gators are thus kicking and flinging off their shell overcoats as they emerge from their incubator, perfect little duplicates of their mother--only that they are rather pretty in their clean, glossy, black or dark-brown skins, which have orange-colored stripes that completely ring their miniature tails and bodies--she wanders anxiously about, probably wondering how many of her family will succeed in running the very uncertain gantlet of life.

For, eaten while in the egg stage by birds and animals, and swallowed by open-mouthed, expectant fishes, and by other alligators--often led, if the truth must be told, by the interesting father himself--as soon as they reach the water, the early days of an alligator are full of trouble. That enough escape to prevent extinction, however, goes almost without saying.

Alligators are hunted for their teeth, which find a ready market when made up into pretty ornaments; and of late years extensively for their hides, which make a very handsome leather. For this purpose the older specimens are not valuable, their hides being too gnarled, knotty, and moss-grown to tan well. After ten or fifteen years the hide coarsens. It is always the skin from the under side of the body and head which is used, that from the back being so heavily armored with tough, horny plates and shields as to be practically useless. The flesh for food finds but few admirers. Like the eggs, it is permeated by a strong, musky flavor, too rank to find appreciation from a refined palate; but in some places the steaks from the reptile are eaten by the negroes and pronounced good.

To successfully hunt the alligator requires experience, for quick work is necessary, the brute disappearing at the least suspicion of danger. Hunting by "jack" is the usual method pursued, for the light seems to charm the creature, so that he may be more easily detained until a properly directed bullet speedily puts an end to his existence.

A professional alligator hunter, or a "'gator man," as he is called, leads a life full of adventure, but his business is upon the wane, since the fad for alligator leather is being pushed aside to make way for something later and more novel. Nevertheless, a description of his outfit may not be uninteresting.

A most important adjunct to this outfit is the man who usually accompanies the 'gator man upon his expeditions. He might properly be called the silent partner, for his duty is to instantly and silently obey the different hand signals, meaning "To the right," "To the left," "Stop," "Back," "Hurry," "Forward," "Spurt," "Slow," given by the hunter, while standing erect in the bow of the boat, when out with the "jack." Indeed, upon his alertness depends much of the success or failure of the night's work.

The other tools used by the 'gator man are a light, strong boat, a pair of light oars and a broad-bladed paddle with a four-foot handle, neatly coiled rope, a jack lamp furnished with a powerful reflector, an axe, a long, keen-bladed hunting knife, two guns (twelve-bore breech-loaders, for a heavy charge at one delivery is absolutely necessary), bags of ammunition, some strong chains, rawhide rope, and a 'gator pole. This last-mentioned "tool" is a stout pole about ten feet long, armed with a heavy hook of quarter-inch iron, bearing a barbed shank of two inches or more, and it is used for hauling the dead alligators from the bottom, for the creatures sink as soon as killed.

The brilliant rays from the "jack" reveal a curious and a grewsome sight when thrown upon a bank or island upon which a group of the creatures have congregated. The shining waters of the swamp, so still and black at that hour of midnight; the hideous tangle of huge gray forms, as a dozen or more alligators, fairly intoxicated by the gleam of the mysterious light, steadfastly watch its incomprehensible presence. Gazing intently, their evil eyes blood-red in the glare from the powerful reflector, some lie motionless, others roar and hiss and snort with thrilling fierceness as the mystery deepens, incessantly arching their bodies, then alternately depressing them to the ground. Still others, crawling from beneath their companions, scuffle angrily to the front, and stand with jaws partly open--now and then slowly inflating their lungs, until their throats and sides puff out like bellows. Yet, strange to say, instinct seems to warn the mother alligator, for there she may be seen quietly creeping away with her young.

Then, the loud reports from the guns, and the mystery is dispelled! The island is deserted, and the work of raising the successfully shot saurians begins.

* * * * *

Boards of rural engineering, syndicates of specialists
organized in several of the countries of northern Europe to
look after drainage and irrigation, have rendered great
services to the populations of the country districts. With
their aid 591 villages in Alsace-Lorraine were provided with
water between 1881 and 1895, and 516 communes in Baden have
been benefited by their assistance. The expense of the
improvement has not exceeded $6.61 (33 francs) per
inhabitant. The Agricultural Bureau in Prussia has in the
past five years drawn the plans and directed the work of 554
hydraulic syndicates, covering a total surface of more than
600,000 acres. A numerous body of these agricultural
engineers is formed every year in Germany, 517 students
having pursued the course of the section of rural
engineering in 1893 in the agronomical institutes of Bonn
and Berlin alone.

It is generally accepted that the spider is a solitary
animal, that will tolerate no companions, even the male
being in danger of being devoured by his female. But a
spider--the _Stregodyphus gregarius_--is described as living
in the Transvaal in communities, including males and
females, young and old. The nests are sometimes voluminous
and have partitions and numerous passages running through
them. The spiders usually escape observation by wrapping
themselves in dry leaves that hang from stems.

THE RACIAL GEOGRAPHY OF EUROPE.

A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY.

(_Lowell Institute Lectures, 1896._)

BY WILLIAM Z. RIPLEY, PH. D.,

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY; LECTURER IN ANTHROPO-GEOGRAPHY AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

SUPPLEMENT.--THE JEWS (_continued_).

Tradition has long divided the Jewish people into two distinct branches: the Sephardim, or southern, and the Ashkenazim, or north, European. Mediæval legend among the Jews themselves traced the descent of the first from the tribe of Judah; the second, from that of Benjamin. The Sephardim are mainly the remnants of the former Spanish and Portuguese Jews. They constitute in their own eyes an aristocracy of the nation. They are found primarily to-day in Africa; in the Balkan states, where they are known as Spagnuoli; less purely in France and Italy. A small colony in London and Amsterdam still holds itself aloof from all communion and intercourse with its brethren. The Ashkenazim branch is numerically far more important, for the German, Russian, and Polish Jews comprise over nine tenths of the people, as we have already seen in our preceding article.

Early observers all describe these two branches of the Jews as very different in appearance. Vogt, in his Lectures on Man, assumes the Polish type to be descended from Hindu sources, while the Spanish alone he held to be truly Semitic. Weisbach[11] gives us the best description of the Sephardim Jew as to-day found at Constantinople. He is slender in habit, he says; almost without exception the head is "exquisitely" elongated and narrow, the face a long oval; the nose hooked and prominent, but thin and finely chiseled; hair and eyes generally dark, sometimes, however, tending to a reddish blond. This rufous tendency in the Oriental Jew is emphasized by many observers. Dr. Beddoe[12] found red hair as frequent in the Orient as in Saxon England, although later results do not fully bear it out.[13] This description of a reddish Oriental type corresponds certainly to the early representations of the Saviour; it is the type, in features, perhaps, rather than hair, painted by Rembrandt--the Sephardim in Amsterdam being familiar to him, and appealing to the artist in preference to the Ashkenazim type. This latter is said to be characterized by heavier features in every way. The mouth, it is alleged, is more apt to be large, the nose thickish at the end, less often clearly Jewish, perhaps. The lips are full and sensual, offering an especial contrast to the thin lips of the Sephardim. The complexion is swarthy oftentimes, the hair and eyes very constantly dark, without the rufous tendency which appears in the other branch. The face is at the same time fuller, the breadth corresponding to a relatively short and round head.

Does this contrast of the traditional Sephardim and Ashkenazim facial types correspond to the anthropometric criteria by means of which we have analyzed the various populations of Europe? And, first of all, is there the difference of head form between the two which our descriptions imply?[14] And, if so, which represents the primitive Semitic type of Palestine? The question is a crucial one. It involves the whole matter of the original physical derivation of the people, and the rival claims to purity of descent of the two branches of the nation. In preceding papers we have learned that western Asia is quite uniformly characterized by an exceeding broad-headedness, the cephalic index--that is to say, the breadth of the head in percentage of the length from front to back--often rising to 86. This is especially marked in Asia Minor, where some of the broadest and shortest crania in the world are to be found. The Armenians, for example, are so peculiar in this respect that their heads appear almost deformed, so flattened are they at the back. A head of the description appears in the case of our Jew from Ferghanah on our second portrait page, 344. On the other hand, the peoples of African or negroid derivation form a radical contrast, their heads being quite long and narrow, with indices ranging from 75 to 78. This is the type of the living Arab to-day. Its peculiarity appears in the prominence of the occipital region in our Arab and other African portraits. Scientific research upon these Arabs has invariably yielded harmonious results. From the Canary Islands,[15] all across northern Africa,[16] to central Arabia itself,[17] the cephalic indices of the nomadic Arabs agree closely. They denote a head form closely allied to that of the long-headed Iberian races, typified in the modern Spaniards, south Italians, and Greeks. It was the head form of the ancient Phoenicians and Egyptians also, as has recently been proved beyond all question.[18] Thus does the European Mediterranean type shade off in head form, as in complexion also, into the primitive anthropological type of the negro. The situation being thus clearly defined, it should be relatively easy to trace our modern Jews, if, indeed, as has so long been assumed, they have remained a pure and undefiled race during the course of their incessant migrations. We should be able to trace their origin if they possess any distinctive head form, either to the one continent or the other, with comparative certainty.

-------------------------+--------------------+----------+------------
AUTHORITY. | Place. | Number. | Cephalic
| | | Index.
-------------------------+--------------------+----------+------------
Lombroso, 1894 a |Turin, Italy. | 112 | 82.0
Weisbach, '77 |Balkan states. | 19 | 82.2
Majer and Kopernicki, '77|Galicia. | 316 | 83.6
Blechmann, '82 |W. Russia. | 100 | 83.2
Stieda, '83 (Dybowski) |Minsk, Russia. | 67 | 82.2
Ikof, '84 |Russia. | 120 | 83.2
Ikof, '84 |Constantinople. |17 crania | 74.5
Ikof, '84 |Crimea. |30 crania | 83.3
| | (Karaim).|
Majer and Kopernicki,'85 |Galicia. | 100 | 81.7
Jacobs, '90 |England. | 363 | 80.0
Jacobs, '90 |England (Sephardim).| 51 |
Talko-Hyrncewicz, '92 |Lithuania. | 713 |
Chantre, '95 |Caucasia. | 34 | 85.0
Weissenberg, '95 |South Russia. | 100 | 82.5
Weissenberg, '95 |South Russia. |50 women. | 82.4
Glück, '96 |Bosnia (Spagnuoli). | 55 | 80.1
Livi, '96 |Italy. | 34 | 81.6
Elkind, '97 |Poland. | 325 |{Men, 81.9
| | |{Women, 82.9
Deniker, '98 |Daghestan. | 19 | 87.0
-------------------------+--------------------+----------+------------

During the last quarter of a century about twenty-five hundred Jews have submitted their heads to scientific measurement. These have naturally for the most part been taken from the Great Russian and Polish branch; a few observers, as Lombroso, Ikof, Jacobs, Glück, and Livi, have taken observations upon a more or less limited number from southern Europe. For purposes of comparison we have reproduced in our footnote a summary of all the results obtained thus far. Inspection of the table shows a surprising uniformity. Ikof's limited series of Spagnuoli from Constantinople, and that of the Jews from Caucasia and Daghestan, are the only ones whose cephalic index lies outside the limits of 80 to 83. In other words, the Jews, wherever found in Europe, betray a remarkable similarity in head form, the crania being considerably broader than among the peoples of Teutonic descent. As we know, the extremes of head form in Europe, measured by the cephalic index, extend from 74 to 89; we thus observe that the Jews take a place rather high in the European series. They are about like the northern French and southern Germans. More important still, they seem to be generally very closely akin in head form to the people among whom they reside. Thus, in Russia and Poland scarcely an appreciable difference exists in this respect between Jews and Christians. The same is true in Turin, while in the direction of Asia our Jews are as bullet-headed as even the most typical Armenians and Caucasians round about them.

MUSSULMAN, TUNIS. Index, 75.

JEW, TUNIS. Index, 75.

AFRICAN SEMITIC TYPES.]

This surprising similarity of head form between the Jews of North and South Europe bears hard upon the long-accepted theory that the Sephardim is dolichocephalic, thereby remaining true to the original Semitic type borne to-day by the Arabs. It has quite universally been accepted that the two branches of the Jews differed most materially in head form. From the facial dissimilarity of the two a correlative difference in head form was a gratuitous inference. Dr. Beddoe observes that in Turkey the Spagnuoli "seemed" to him to be more dolichocephalic. A few years later Barnard Davis (1867) "suspected" a diversity, but had only three Italian skulls to judge from, so that his testimony counts for little. Then Weisbach (1877) referred to the "exquisitely" long heads of the Spagnuoli, but his data show a different result. Ikof, with his small series of crania from Constantinople, is the only observer who got a result which accords in any degree with what we know of the head form of the modern Semitic peoples. On the other hand, Glück in Bosnia and Livi in Italy find no other sign of long-headedness than a slight drop in index of a point or two. Jacobs, in England, whose methods, as Topinard has observed, are radically defective, gives no averages for his Sephardim, but they appear to include about eleven per cent less pure long-headed types than even their Ashkenazim brethren in London. This, it will be noted, is the exact opposite of what might normally be expected. This tedious summary forces us inevitably to the conclusion that, while a long-headed type of Sephardim Jews may exist, the law is very far from being satisfactorily established.

Thus, from a study of our primary characteristic--the proportions of the head--we find our modern Jews endowed with a relatively much broader head than that of the average Englishman, for example: while the best living representative of the Semitic race, the Arab, has a head which is even longer and narrower than our own type. It is, in short, one of the longest known, being in every way distinctly African. The only modern Jews who even approach this type would seem to be those who actually reside to-day in Africa, as in the case of our two portrait types from that region. Two possible explanations are open to us: either the great body of the Jews in Europe to-day--certainly all the Ashkenazim, who form upward of ninety per cent of the nation, and quite probably the Sephardim also, except possibly those in Africa--have departed widely from the parental type in Palestine; or else the original Semitic type was broad-headed, and, by inference, distinctly Asiatic in derivation; in which case it is the modern Arab which has deviated from its original pattern. Ikof is the only authority who boldly faces this dilemma, and chooses the Asiatic hypothesis with his eyes open.[19] Which, we leave it to the reader to decide, would be the more likely to vary--the wandering Jew, ever driven from place to place by constant persecution, and constantly exposed to the vicissitudes of life in densely populated cities, the natural habitat of the people, as we have said; or the equally nomadic Arab, who, however, seems to be invariable in type, whether in Algeria, Morocco, the Canary Islands, or Arabia Felix itself? There can be but one answer, it seems to us. The original Semitic stock must have been in origin strongly dolichocephalic--that is to say, African as the Arabs are to-day; from which it follows, naturally, that about nine tenths of the living Jews are as widely different in head form from the parent stock to-day as they well could be. The boasted purity of descent of the Jews is, then, a myth. Renan (1883) is right, after all, in his assertion that the ethnographic significance of the word Jew, for the Russian and Danubian branch at least, long ago ceased to exist. Or, as Lombroso observes, the modern Jews are physically more Aryan than Semitic, after all. They have unconsciously taken on to a large extent the physical traits of the people among whom their lot has been thrown. In Algiers they have remained long-headed like their neighbors, for, even if they intermarried, no tendency to deviation in head form would be provoked. If, on the other hand, they settled in Piedmont, Austria, or Russia, with their moderately round-headed populations, they became in time assimilated to the type of these neighbors as well.

Nothing is simpler than to substantiate the argument of a constant intercourse and intermixture of Jews with the Christians about them all through history, from the original exodus of the forty thousand (?) from Jerusalem after the destruction of the second temple. At this time the Jewish nation as a political entity ceased to exist. An important consideration to be borne in mind in this connection, as Neubauer suggests very aptly, is that opposition to mixed marriages was primarily a prejudice of religion and not of race. It was dissipated on the conversion of the Gentile to Judaism. In fact, in the early days of Judaism marriage with a nonbeliever was not invalid at all, as it afterward became, according to the Jewish code. Thus Josephus, speaking of the Jews at Antioch, mentions that they made many converts, receiving them into their community. An extraordinary number of conversions to Judaism undoubtedly took place during the second century after Christ. As to the extent of intermarriage which ensued during the middle ages discussion is still rife. Renan, Neubauer, and others interpret the various rigid prohibitions against intermarriage of Jews with Christians--as, for example, at the church councils of 538, 589, at Toledo, and of 743 at Rome--to mean the prevalent danger of such practices becoming general; while Jacobs, Andree, and others are inclined to place a lower estimate upon their importance. Two wholesale conversions are known to have taken place: the classical one of the Khozars, in South Russia, during the reign of Charlemagne, and that of the Falashas, who were neighboring Arab tribes in Yemen. Jacobs has ably shown, however, the relatively slight importance of these. It is probable that the greatest amount of infusion of Christian blood must have taken place, in any event, not so much through such striking conversions, as insidiously through clandestine or irregular marriages.

HÉRAULT, FRANCE.

ELIZABETHGRAD, RUSSIA.

SPAGNUOLI, BOSNIA.

ELIZABETHGRAD, RUSSIA.

JEWISH TYPES.]

We find, for example, much prohibitive legislation against the employment of Christian servants by Jews. This was directed against the danger of conversion to Judaism, by the master, with consequent intermarriage. It is not likely that these prohibitions were of much avail, for, despite stringent laws in Hungary, for example, we find the archbishop of that country reporting in 1229 that many Jews were illegally living with Christian wives, and that conversions by thousands were taking place. In any case, no protection for slaves was ever afforded. The confinement of the Jews strictly to the Ghettos during the later centuries would naturally discourage such intermixture of blood, as also the increasing popular hatred between Jew and Christian; but, on the other hand, the greater degree of tolerance enjoyed by the Israelites even during this present century would be competent speedily to produce great results. Jacobs has strenuously, although perhaps somewhat inconclusively, argued in favor of a substantial purity of the Jews by means of a number of other data--such as, for example, by a study of the relative frequency of Jewish names, by the supposed relative infecundity of mixed marriages, and the like. Experience and the facts of everyday observation, on the other hand, tend to confirm us in the belief that racially no purity of descent is to be supposed for an instant. Consider the evidence of names, for example. We may admit a considerable purity, perhaps, to the Cohns and Cohens, legitimate descendants of the Cohanim, the sons of Aaron, early priests of the temple. Their marital relations were safeguarded against infusion of foreign blood in every possible way. The name is, perhaps, in its various forms, the most frequent among Jews to-day. But how shall we account for the equally pure Jewish names in origin, such as Davis, Harris, Phillips, and Hart? How did they ever stray so far from their original ethnic and religious significance, unless the marital bars were lowered to a large degree? Some of them certainly claim a foremost position numerically in our Christian English directories. We have an interesting case of indefinite Jewish delimitation in our portraits. The middle portrait at page 341 is certainly a Jewish type. Dr. Bertholon writes me that all who saw it immediately asserted it to be a Jew. Yet the man was a professed Mussulman, in fact, even though his face was against him.

There is, as we have sought to prove, no single uniform type of head peculiar to the Jewish people which may be regarded as in any sense racially hereditary. Is this true also of the face? Our first statement encounters no popular disapproval, for most of us never, perhaps, happened to think of this head form as characteristic. But the face, the features! Is this another case of science running counter to popular belief?

The first characteristic to impress itself upon the layman is that the Jew is generally a brunette. All scientific observers corroborate this impression, agreeing in that the dark hair and eyes of this people really constitute a distinct racial trait. About two thirds of the Ashkenazim branch in Galicia and Russia, where the general population is relatively quite blond, is of the brunette type, this being especially marked in the darker color of the hair. For example, Majer and Kopernicki,[20] in Galicia, found dark hair to be about twice as frequent as the light. Elkind,[21] in Warsaw, finds about three fifths of the men dark. In Bosnia, Glück's observations on the Sephardim type gave him only two light-haired men out of fifty-five. In Germany and Austria[22] this brunette tendency is likewise strongly emphasized. Pure brunette types are twice as frequent in the latter country, and three times as frequent in Germany, among Jewish as among Christian school children. Facts also seem to bear out the theory, to which we have already alluded, that the Oriental Jews betray a slightly greater blond tendency, thus inclining to rufous. In Germany also the blond tendency becomes appreciably more frequent in Alsace-Lorraine, a former center of gravity of the nation, as the map in our previous article has shown. This comparative blondness of the Alsatian Jew is not new, for in 1861 the origin of these same blondes was matter of controversy. Broca believed them to be of northern derivation, while Pruner Bey traced them from a blondish Eastern source. The English Jews seem also to be slightly lighter than their continental brethren, even despite their presumably greater proportion of Sephardim, who are supposed to be peculiarly dark. As to the relative red blondness of the Oriental Jew, the early observations of Dr. Beddoe, and those of Langerhans (1873) as to the blue eyes and red-brown hair of the Druses of Lebanon, do not seem to be borne out; or, as Jacobs puts it, the "argument may be dismissed with costs." Certainly the living Semites are dark enough in type, and the evidence of the sacred books bears out the same theory of an original dark type. Thus "black" and "hair" are commonly synonymous in the early Semitic languages. In any case, whatever the color in the past, we have seen that science corroborates the popular impression that the Jews as a people are distinctively of a brunette type. This constitutes one of the principal traits by which they may be almost invariably identified. It is not without interest to notice that this brunetteness is more accentuated, oftentimes, among the women, who are, the world over, persistent conservators of the primitive physical characteristics of a people.[23]

Secondly, as to the nose. Popularly the humped or hook nose constitutes the most distinctive feature of the Jewish face. Observations among the Jews, in their most populous centers, do not, however, bear out the theory. Thus Majer and Kopernicki (1885), in their extended series, found only nine per cent of the hooked type--no greater frequency than among the Poles; a fact which Weissenberg confirms as to the relative scarcity of the convex nose in profile among his South Russian Jews. He agrees, however, that the nose is often large, thick, and prominent. Weisbach (1877) measured the facial features of nineteen Jews, and found the largest noses in a long series of people from all over the earth; exceeded in length, in fact, by the Patagonians alone. The hooked nose is, indeed, sometimes frequent outside the Jewish people. Olechnowicz found, for example, over a third of the noses of the gentry in southeast Poland to be of this hooked variety. Running the eye over our carefully chosen series of portraits, selected for us as typical from four quarters of Europe--Algeria, Russia, Bosnia, and the confines of Asia--representing the African, Balkan Spagnuoli, and Russian Ashkenazim varieties, visual impression will also confirm our deduction. The Jewish nose is not so often truly convex in profile. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that it gives a hooked impression. This seems to be due to a peculiar "tucking up of the wings," as Dr. Beddoe expresses it. Herein lies the real distinctive quality about it, rather than in any convexity of outline. In fact, it often renders a nose concave in profile, immediately recognizable as Jewish. Jacobs[24] has ingeniously described this "nostrility," as he calls it, by the following diagrams: Write, he says, a figure 6 with a long tail (Fig. 1); now remove the turn of the twist, and much of the Jewishness disappears; and it vanishes entirely when we draw the lower continuation horizontally, as in Fig. 3. Behold the transformation! The Jew has turned Roman beyond a doubt. What have we proved, then? That there is in reality such a phenomenon as a Jewish nose, even though it be differently constituted from our first assumption. A moment's inspection of our series of portraits will convince the skeptic that this trait, next to the prevalent dark hair and eyes and the swarthy skin, is the most distinctive among the chosen people.

Another characteristic of the Jewish physiognomy is the eyes. The eyebrows, seemingly thick because of their darkness, appear to be nearer together than usual, arching smoothly into the lines of the nose. The lids are rather full, the eyes large, dark, and brilliant. A general impression of heaviness is apt to be given. In favorable cases this imparts a dreamy, melancholy, or thoughtful expression to the countenance; in others it degenerates into a blinking, drowsy type; or, again, with eyes half closed, it may suggest suppressed cunning. The particular adjective to be applied to this expression varies greatly according to the personal equation of the observer. Quite persistent also is a fullness of the lips, often amounting in the lower one almost to a pout. The chin in many cases is certainly rather pointed and receding, Jacobs to the contrary notwithstanding. A feature of my own observation, perhaps not fully justified, is a peculiar separation of the teeth, which seem to stand well apart from one another. But a truce to speculations. Entering into greater detail, the flat contradictions of different observers show that they are vainly generalizing from an all too narrow base of observations. Even the fancied differences in feature between the two great branches of the Hebrew people seem to us to be of doubtful existence. Our portraits do not bear it out. It seems rather that the two descriptions of the Ashkenazim and Sephardim types which we have quoted denote rather the distinction between the faces of those of the upper and the lower classes. Enough for us to know that there is a something Jewish in these faces which we instantly detect. We recognize it in Rembrandt's Hermitage, or in Munkaczy's Christ before Pilate. Not invariable are these traits. Not even to the Jew himself are they always a sure criterion. Weissenberg gives an interesting example of this.[25] To a friend, a Jew in Elizabethgrad, he submitted two hundred and fifty photographs of Russian Jews and Christians in undistinctive costume. Seventy per cent of the Jews were rightly chosen, while but ten per cent of the Russians were wrongly classed as Jews. Of what concern is it whether this characterization be entirely featural, or in part a matter of expression? The first would be a matter of direct heredity, the second hypothesis partakes more of the nature of a characteristic acquired from the social environment. Some one--Jacobs, I think--speaks of it as the "expression of the Ghetto." It certainly appears in the remarkable series of composite Jewish portraits published in his monograph. It would not be surprising to find this true. Continued hardship, persecution, a desperate struggle against an inexorable human environment as well as natural one, could not but write its lines upon the face. The impression of a dreary past is deep sunk in the bodily proportions, as we have seen. Why not in the face as well?

We are now prepared, in conclusion, to deal with what is perhaps the most interesting phase of our discussion. It is certainly, if true, of profound sociological importance. We have in these pages spoken at length of the head form--primary index of race; we have shown that there are Jews and Jews in this respect. Yet which was the real Jew it was not for us to decide, for the ninety-and-nine were broad-headed, while the Semite in the East is still, as ever, a long-headed member of the Africanoid races. This discouraged our hopes of proving the existence of a Jewish cephalic type as the result of purity of descent. It may indeed be affirmed with certainty that the Jews are by hereditary descent from early times no purer than most of their European neighbors. Then we discovered evidence that in this head form the Jews were often closely akin to the people among whom they lived. In long-headed Africa they were dolichocephalic. In brachycephalic Piedmont, though supposedly of Sephardim descent, they were quite like the Italians of Turin. And all over Slavic Europe no distinction in head form between Jew and Christian existed. In the Caucasus also they approximate closely the cranial characteristics of their neighbors. Hypnotic suggestion was not needed to find a connection here, especially since all history bore us out in our assumption of a large degree of intermixture of Gentile blood. Close upon this disproval of purity of type by descent came evidence of a distinct uniformity of facial type. Even so impartial an observer as Weissenberg--certainly not prejudiced in favor of cephalic invariability--confesses this featural unity.

How shall we solve this enigma of ethnic purity, and yet impurity, of type? In this very apparent contradiction lies the grain of comfort for our sociological hypothesis. The Jew is radically mixed in the line of _racial descent_; he is, on the other hand, the legitimate heir to all Judaism as a matter of _choice_. It is for us a case of purely artificial selection, operative as ever only in those physical traits which appeal to the senses. It is precisely analogous to our example of the Basques in France and Spain. What we have said of them will apply with equal force here. Both Jews and Basques possessed in a high degree a "consciousness of kind"; they were keenly sensible of their social individuality. The Basques primarily owed theirs to geographical isolation and a peculiar language; that of the Jews was derived from the circumstances of social isolation, dependent upon the dictates of religion. Another case in point occurs to us in this connection. Chantre,[26] in a recent notable work, has shown the remarkable uniformity in physical type among the Armenians. They are so peculiar in head form that we in America recognize them at once by their foreshortened and sugar-loaf skulls, almost devoid of occiput. They too, like the Jews, have long been socially isolated in their religion. Thus in all these cases, Basques, Armenians, and Jews, we have a potent selective force at work. So far as in their power lay, the individuality of all these people was encouraged and perpetuated as one of their dearest possessions. It affected every detail of their lives. Why should it not also react upon their ideal of physical beauty? and why not influence their sexual preferences, as well as to determine their choice in marriage? Its results became thus accentuated through heredity. But all this would be accomplished, be it especially noted, only in so far as the physical traits were consciously or unconsciously impressed upon them by the facts of observation. There arises at once the difference between artificial selection in the matter of the head form and that concerning the facial features. One is an unsuspected possession of individuality, the other is matter of common notice and, it may be, of report. What Jew or Christian, till he became anthropologist, ever stopped to consider the shape of his head, any more than the addition of a number of cubits to his stature? Who has not, on the other hand, early acquired a distinct concept of a Jewish face and of a distinctly Jewish type? Could such a potent fact escape observation for a moment?

We are confirmed in our belief in the potency of an artificial selection, such as we have described, to perpetuate or to evolve a Jewish facial type by reason of another observation. The women among the Jews, as Jacobs[27] notes, in confirmation of our own belief, betray far more constantly than the men the outward characteristics peculiar to the people. We have already cited Weissenberg's testimony that brunetteness is twice as prevalent among Russian Jewesses as among the men. Of course this may be a matter of anabolism, pure and simple. This would be perhaps a competent explanation of the phenomenon for physiologists like Geddes and Thompson. For us this other cause may be more directly responsible. Artificial selection in a social group, wherein the active choice of mates falls to the share of the male, would seem to tend in the direction of an accentuated type in that more passive sex on which the selective influence directly plays. At all events, observations from widely scattered sources verify the law that the facial individuality of a people is more often than otherwise expressed most clearly in the women. Thus, for example, the women betray the Mongol type more constantly than the men among the Asiatic tribes of eastern Russia.[28] On the other hand, Mainof, best of authority, confirms the same tendency among those of Finnic descent.[29] The _Setti Communi_ in northern Italy still preserve their German language as evidence of a historic Teutonic descent. They seem to have lost their identity entirely in respect of the head form,[30] but Ranke[31] states that among the women the German facial type constantly reappears. This, I confess, is not altogether easy to understand, unless the Lombards, of whom these colonies are supposedly the remnants, brought their native women with them across the Alps. Perhaps, however, not bringing their women, a new Teutonic resemblance has been evolved out of whole cloth. A better example than this is offered among the Hamitic peoples of Africa north of the Sahara. These peoples, from Abyssinia to Morocco, really belong to the white races of Europe. Among nearly all their tribes the negroid traits are far more accentuated among the women, according to Sergi.[32] It is not necessary to cite more specific testimony. The law occupies a respected place among anthropologists. That the Jews confirm it, would seem to strengthen our hypothesis at every point.

Our final conclusion, then, is this: It is paradoxical, yet true, we affirm. The Jews are not a race, but only a people, after all. In their faces we read its confirmation, while in respect of their other traits we are convinced that such individuality as they possess--by no means inconsiderable--is of their own making from one generation to the next, rather than as a product of an unprecedented purity of physical descent.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] 1877, p. 214.

[12] 1861 b, pp. 227 and 331.

[13] Glück, 1896 a. Jacobs, 1890, p. 82, did not find a trace of it in the Sephardim congregation in London. See Andree, 1878, in this connection.

[14] The cephalic index by which we measure the head-form is merely the breadth of the head in percentage of its length from front to back. The index rises as the head becomes relatively more broad.

[15] Verneau, 1881 a, p. 500.

[16] Pruner Bey, 65 b; Gillebert d'Hercourt, 1868, p. 9; and especially Collignon, 1887 a, pp. 326-339; Bertholon, 1892, p. 41; also Collignon, 1896 b.

[17] Eliséev, 1883.

[18] Bertholon, 1892, p. 43; Sergi, 1897 a, chapter i, and even more recently Fouquet, 1896 and 1897, on the basis of De Morgan's discoveries.

[19] Compare Brinton, 1890 a, p. 132, and 1890 b, for interesting linguistic data on the Semites.

[20] 1877, pp. 88-90; 1885, p. 84.

[21] Centralblatt für Anthropologie, vol. iii, p. 66.

[22] Virchow, 1886 b, p. 364; Schimmer, 1884, p. xxiii.

[23] Weissenberg, 1895, p. 567, finds brunettes twice as frequent among the south Russian Jewesses as among the men.

[24] 1886 a, p. xxxii.

[25] 1895, p. 563.

[26] Recherches anthropologiques dans l'Asie Occidentale (Archives du Museum d'histoire naturelle, Lyons, vol. vi, 1895).

[27] 1886 a, p. xxviii.

[28] Sommier, 1887, reprint, p. 116. Cf. Zograf, 1896, p. 50, on crania from the sixteenth century in Moscow.

[29] Congrès int. des sciences géographiques, Paris, 1875, p. 268.

[30] Livi, 1896 a, pp. 137 and 146.

[31] Beiträge zur Anth. Bayerns, vol. ii, 1879, p. 75.

[32] Africa, Antropologia della stirpe Camitica, Torino, 1897, p. 263.

TRUE TALES OF BIRDS AND BEASTS.

BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.

I.--SEÑOR ALCATRAZ.

He was just a bird when he was born, and a very ugly bird at that. For he had big splay feet, with all the toes turned forward and joined together in one broad web, and his wings were thick and clumsy, and underneath his long bill there was a big red sack that he could fill with fishes, and when it was full he could hardly walk or fly, so large the sack was and so great was his appetite.

But he kept the sack well filled and he emptied it out every day into his stomach, and so he grew very soon to be a large bird, as big as a turkey, though not as fat, and each day uglier than ever.

But one morning, when he was walking out on the sand flat of the Astillero at Mazatlan, Mexico, where he lived, he saw a big fish which had been left by the falling tide in a little pool of water. It was a blue-colored fish with a big bony head, and no scales, and a sleek, slippery skin. He did not know that it was a _bagre_, but he thought that all fishes were good to eat, so he opened his mouth and slipped the fish, tail first, down into his pouch. It went all right for a while, but when the fish woke up and knew he was being swallowed, he straightened out both of his arms, and there he was. For the bagre is a kind of catfish, and each arm is a long, stiff, sharp bone, or spine, with a saw edge the whole length of it. And all the bagre has to do is just to put this arm out straight and twist it at the shoulder and then it is set, and no animal can bend or break it. And it pierced right through the skin of the bird's sack, and the bird could not swallow it, nor make it go up nor down, and the bagre held on tight, for he knew that if he let go once he would be swallowed, and that would be the last of him.

So the bird tried everything he could think of, and the fish held on, and they kept it up all day. In the afternoon a little boy came out on the sands. His name was Inocente, and he was the son of Ygnacio, the fisherman of Mazatlan. And Inocente took a club of mangrove and ran up to the struggling bird and struck it on the wing with the club. The blow broke the wing, and the bird lay down to die, for with a broken wing and a fish that would not go up nor down, there was no hope for him.

When Inocente saw what kind of a fish it was, he knew just what to do. He reached down into the bird's sack and took hold of the fish's spines. He gave each one a twist so that it rolled over in its socket, the upper part toward the fish's head, and then they were not stiff any more, but lay flat against the side of the fish, just as they ought to lie. Then the fish knew that it had found a master, and lay perfectly still. So the bird gave a great gulp, and out the bagre went on the sand, and when the tide came up it swam away, and took care never to go again where a bird could get hold of it. And the bird with the broken wing had learned something about fishes, too. But he could not fly away, so he waited to see what the boy was going to do.

The boy took the bird into his boat and brought him home. And old Ygnacio put a splint on his wing and covered it with salve, and by and by it healed. But the bone was set crooked, and the bird could not fly very well. So the boys called the bird Señor Alcatraz, which is the Spanish for Mr. Pelican, and Señor Alcatraz and all the boys and dogs and goats became good friends, and all ran about on the streets together. And when the boys would shout and the dogs bark, all Señor Alcatraz could do was to squawk and hiss and open his big mouth and show the inside of his red fish sack.

And when the boys would go fishing on the wharf, Alcatraz would go, too, and he would stow away the fishes in his pouch as fast as the boys could catch them. But if they caught a bagre fish, he would turn his head the other way and then run away home just as fast as his splay feet would take him.

And when the men drew the net on the beach Alcatraz would splash around inside the net, catching whatever he could, and having a great deal of fun in his clumsy pelican fashion. Then he would run along the street with the boys, squawking and flapping his wings and thinking that he was just like the rest of them. And if you ever go to Mazatlan, ask for Dr. Rogers, and he will show you the way to Ygnacio's cabin on the street they call Libertad. And there in the front yard, in a general scramble of dogs, goats, and little Indian boys, you will see Señor Alcatraz romping and squabbling like the best of them. And you will know which he is by the broken wing and the red sack under his throat. But if you say "Bagre" to him, he will run under the doorstep and hide his face till you go away.

II.--THE LITTLE BLUE FOX.