in a
state of nature, to a small-sized race in being of small size. The
guess is made that the small people can more easily hide, whether in
forest or among the rocks and caves of mountainous regions, from
aggressive larger-sized mankind. The objection to this view is that
though it may explain the present habits and dwelling-places of some
of the pygmy race, it is not capable of explaining their first
segregation and formation as a distinct race. Another general
advantage which small animals have over larger ones of the same
species is that if the food of the species is widely distributed but
limited in amount, a hundred individuals weighing 5 st. each will
secure more of it than fifty individuals weighing 10 st. each. The
total weight of individuals is the same, but the smaller series will
cover twice the area and have twice as much opportunity to secure the
limited amount of food, whilst, in proportion to their size, requiring
less. It cannot be doubted that, other things being equal, this
obvious relation must tend to limit the increase in size of animals
which have to search for their special food, and must favour small
races.

Some writers have supposed that small limited areas, such as small
islands, favour the production of small races by some mysterious law
of appropriateness similar to that which lays down that "who drives
fat oxen should himself be fat." The pygmy buffalo of the island of
Celebes, the Anoa, is cited as an instance, and the pygmy men of the
Andaman Islands as another. But there are plenty of facts which would
lead to an exactly opposite conclusion. Gigantic tortoises are found
in the Galapagos Islands and in the minute islands of the Indian
Ocean, and never on the big continents. Gigantic birds bigger than
ostriches abounded in the islands of New Zealand and Madagascar. Some
of the tallest races of men are found in the Pacific islands, whilst
the tallest European population is that of the north of the island
called Great Britain. Probably the real relation of islands to the
matter is that owing to their isolation and freedom from the general
competition of the vast variety of living things in continental areas,
they offer unoccupied territory in which either exceptionally small or
exceptionally big races may flourish--if once they reach the island
shelter, or are by variation produced there--without competitive
interference.

An important consideration in regard to the formation and segrega