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88   NATURAL INHERITANCE.   [CHAP.

dividing (see Table 9) the male and female parents re

spectively into three nearly equal groups, of tall, medium, and short. It was impracticable to make them precisely equal, on account of the roughness with which the measurements were recorded, so I framed rules that seemed best adapted to the case. Consequently the numbers of the tall and short proved to be only approximately and not exactly equal, and the two together were only approximately equal to the medium cases. The final results- were :-32 instances where one parent was short and the other tall, and 27 where both were short or both were tall. In other words, there were 32 cases of contrast in marriage, to 27 cases, of likeness. I do not regard this difference as of consequence, because the numbers are small, and because a slight change in the limiting values assigned to shortness and tallness, would have a sensible effect upon the result. I am therefore content to ignore it, and to regard the Statures of married folk just as if their choice in marriage had been wholly independent of stature. The importance of this supposition in facilitating calculation will be appreciated as we proceed.


Issue of Unlike Parents.-We will next discuss the

question whether the Stature of the issue of unlike parents betrays any notable evidence of their unlikeness, or whether the peculiarities of the children do not rather depend on the average of two values ; one the Stature of the father, and the other the transmuted Stature of the mother ; in other words, on the Stature of