The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-13
PEBALD BABIES
 BABBLE SCIENCE DOWN IN DAREN
One Girl Is Marked With
 Beautiful Batik Design
By LENrUEL F. PARTON

oy r. IEAKb1
 Copyright, 1924, in United States and Canada. by North American Newspaper
 NEW YORK, July 12.--C. H. Bree- der, scientist of the American Mesuem of Natural History with the Marsh Darien expedition, has confirmed the report of Robert o. M.,rsL that he has discovered white Indians. If later, more detailed studies should finally establish new racial differentiation of the Darien peoples, it may also pro duce an explanation of the puzzlins phenomenon of the piebald peoples. or 'pintos," as they are sometimes called.
 The general colos scheme of the na- tives of this region is, to put 1t mildly, cratic. Anthropologists have con fessed that they have no adequate solu' tion of this problem of strange body markings. One theory is that 1t is due to consanguinity-these people have world, and there has been much in- breeding.
 Village Of Piebalds
 I became especially interested in the phenomenon of the spotted peoples, m it's bearing on the tr; smission 0. ac' quired characteristics. While there IS V that this peculiarit. of augmentation is heritable, and while my observations were not extensive enough to have any scientific validity, the 4act remains that Tucuti is a village of pi I~s. and that in many instances there l. an astonishing similarity of markings in single families It will easily be u derstood that, if it could be shown that this is a biological -Lc:or, instead of mere matter of surface pi mentation. it would acquire profound signitcanc>. While it is true that the Darien, iSo- lated as it is, has been an ideal laborA- tory, in which nature might attempt some daring "sports,' it is difficult to predicate any real racial differentiation on the facts in hand, on account of the virtual impossibility scribing any survival value to the errati: pigmen- tation. My observations covered sev- eral instances of children apparently copying their parents designs.
 Marked Like Mother
 When I was down there, Greenwich Village had not yet flau: ted its -3atik banner to the world, ut there was one baby in Tucuti which would today, l am sure, be known as the "Batik Baby" It bore a print, covering its entire body, astonishingly like the batik, which one associates with samovars and free verse. The hah'.'s father was Hop Cow, Chinese. H. went to Ancon once every five years and brought back a boatload of aguadiente (sane whisky) and trinkets, which he traded to the natives for gold dust. l.: moth- CT was Lorita, tall, ecutiful piebald woman. Her design was amazingly like that Lof the baby, especially the detail of charming zig--ag Jmposi- tion on her back and shoulders. The batik effect, in the baby's makeup, was accentuated by the yellowing Chi nese strain.
 It was a happy, healthy little baby, with snappy black eyes, like raisins stuck in a pan of yellow cake dough. She would be about eighteen years old now. If Marsh fhould bring her to New York am sure she would be the belle of the Greenwich Will. SC ball. and with the cheapest costume. My notes contain records of several other hildren who were marked like their parents, but the data is insufficient to justify any formulation re :al ling heri ability.
 Protective CoIoring?
 We decided to try out a possibly far-fetched hypothesis that the color variants constituted protective color ing, and in this we would find the ele- lnent of survival value which we sought. We chose Tulio, a tall, strikingly. marked native, for our experiment. With him we took Gaston, a shiny, black Martinique boy, our interpreter, md went into the deep jungle. We hose spot where stray shafts of sun. light shot through the trees and broke up the masses of green into eccentric patterns, like a futurist drawing. Here we stood Tulio and Gaston a few feet apart.
 Then we withdrew to a spot about 100 yards away and awaited another member of our expedition, who knew nothing of our experiment. We met him and blind-folded him, and then led him to an opening between the savan- nahs. Lifting his bandage for a second pr two, we asked him what he saw. He replied that he saw Gaston. He lid not see the native. In seven out If twelve trails, in different places in he jungle, he saw Gaston only in two or three, he saw both Tulio and Gas. ton, and in the remainder he saw Gas ton first.
 Question Of Time
 III lulS CApCIIuClll5 we realized for the first time that the pie bald markings are, in the dense jungle, astonishingly like vegetation mottled by sunlight. It is obvious that adapta- tions such as this do not come in the period of time which these people have had for such differentiation, but is it not possible that there is an adventi- tious survival value in these markings?
 We began the drafting of a rough Mendelian chart of some of the families of Tucuti with a view to getting some data which might be worth while, but our plans were wrecked by fortuit- ous combination of bottle of rough, red whisky, a boat load of yams, the batik baby and other factors, which sent us hurriedly on our way.
 AUBURN ALUM-NI