Research for this paper was supported by a small grant from the Faculty of Arts of York University. Thanks are also due to Michael Sokal, and to the editor and referee of this journal, for valuable suggestions on an earlier manuscript.

¹ Donovan's original report is preserved in the Galton Archives at the Library of University College London, Folder 81. Some representative excerpts from it have been published in Forrest, D. W., Francis Galton: The life and work of a Victorian genius, London, 1974, p. 37.Google Scholar

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⁵ Quoted in Pearson, K., The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton, 3 vols, in 4, Cambridge, 1914–1930, ii, p. 70.Google Scholar

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⁸ Mill, J. S., Principles of political economy, 2 Vols., Toronto, 1965, i, p. 319Google Scholar. The statement originally appeared in Mill's first edition of 1848.

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¹⁴ Ibid., p. 367.

¹⁵ Morton's studies have recently been critically analyzed in Gould, S. J., The mismeasure of man, New York, 1981, especially pp. 50–69.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 42–50. Gould argues that a further factor in Agassiz's conversion was his shock and disgust upon personally encountering a black person for the first time, in 1846.

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¹⁸ Ibid., i, p. 207. For a good example of this kind of reporting see Lander, R., Records of Captain Clapperton's last expedition to Africa, 2 Vols., London, 1830, especially i, pp. 300–303.Google Scholar

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²⁷ In 1861, nine years after his return to England, Galton explicitly contrasted Burton's and Speke's impressions of the natives of Zanzibar, and sided with the former: ‘Burton's account conveys a repulsive picture of a vulgar, boisterous and drunken savagery overspreading the land…. On the other hand, Speke and the present Consul take the negroes' part…. My own belief leans strongly towards the unfavourable view’. Galton, F., ‘Zanzibar’, The mission field, 1861, 6, 121–130, p. 128.Google Scholar

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³⁴ Hahn, et al. , op. cit. (32), p. 40Google Scholar. A similar and more widespread case of misnaming occurred in America, where the Dakota Indians were commonly called ‘Sioux’, a French misrendering of ‘Nadowessi’ (‘little snake’), the Ojibway designation for their Dakota enemies.

³⁵ Quoted in Forrest, , op. cit. (1), p. 69.Google Scholar

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