Before leaving the subject of the ethnology of the aborigines, reference must be made to the moot question as to whether or not there exists in Formosa a pigmy people similar to the Aetas of the Philippines. Regarding this most interesting point, I can only say that I was never able to discover a race of pigmies--a tribe or group, however small. But I did find, while in the territory of the Taiyal, isolated instances of individuals with apparently a pigmy strain. This particularly in the case of certain women--three or four. I do not refer, of course, only to the difference in size between these women and the Taiyal women--or the women of any of the other tribes; but to certain characteristics of physique in which they radically differ. For one thing, the shape of the head is distinctly different, that of these very small women being more negroid than Malay, and curiously infantile even for the negroid type of skull--i.e. with disproportionately bulging forehead. Also the whole shape of the body is more that of a child than is the case with most adult women, either among Formosan aborigines or others. The opposition between the great toe and the other toes is more marked than with the other aborigines. And--perhaps most significant feature of all--the hair of these women is distinctly “crinkly,” whereas that of the other aborigines of the main island, as of all Malay peoples, is absolutely straight--a fact of which the small women are evidently ashamed.[54] The colour of these pigmy women--if such they may be called--is, however, not as dark as that of the Philippine Aetas or the Andamanese Islanders. On the contrary, it is rather lighter than that of the surrounding tribes-people. Unfortunately, I did not take measurements of these small women--in fact, I had no instruments for accurately doing this--but I do not think their height can be over four feet two or three inches. An interesting point in connection with them is that the other aborigines among whom they live regard these women as being “different.” They themselves--those whom I saw--were taciturn and seemed averse to expressing themselves. Also curious, in a tribe where few divorces occur and seemingly little marital infelicity, all these tiny women whom I personally knew were divorced or separated from their husbands--Taiyal men; “mutual incompatibility” apparently being the cause.