One of the principal examples quoted in favor of the innocuousness of consanguineous marriages has been the little community of Pitcairn islanders, descendants of a few surviving mutineers of the British ship Bounty, and a dozen or so Tahitian women. Notwithstanding the fact that their original stock could hardly be called good, that they were all closely related, and that intermarriage must therefore have been very close among them, they have been always described as splendid specimens of the race, physically, morally and mentally. Quite recently, however, a totally different account of this isolated community has been given. Mr. Hamilton Hunter, who visited the islands in the official capacity of commissioner, on the British ship of war Comus, reports that he found the islanders "lax in morals, weak in intellect, lazy and rapidly degenerating," and this, it is said, is also the verdict of the British naval officers who accompanied