The Laplanders are the only very small-sized people in Europe, but they run from 5 ft. upwards, whereas the negrites and negrillos run from about 4 ft. to less than 5 ft. The Lapps (of whom there are about 25,000 in Finmark and Lapmark) are a thick-set, round-headed (brachycephalic), dark-yellow race, and have always been credited with powers of witchcraft and magic by their neighbours and by modern sailors. They live in immediate contact with the Finns (both are Mongolian races), who are very tall and have fair hair and blue eyes. Some writers have supposed that the Lapps are the remnants of a small race which was formerly spread over the whole of Europe, and was exterminated or driven out by the larger races. But we have no evidence in favour of this view and strong evidence against it, since we now know the skulls and skeletons of a great number of the prehistoric inhabitants of Europe belonging to the Bronze, to the Neolithic, and to the Palaeolithic periods. None of these skeletons belong to an abnormally small-sized race, though the Bronze-age people were smaller than their predecessors and successors. The cave-dwellers of the "reindeer" epoch of the Palaeolithic period were big men, with fine, high skulls, and even the earlier Palaeolithic men of the glacial period, the man of the Neanderthal, the couple from Spy, and the three recently dug up near Perigueux (of whom I have written in another book),[8] were not diminutive men. It is true they were not tall--only about 5 ft. 4 in. in height--but they were very powerful and muscular, and totally different physically from the Lapps or from any of the tropical pygmy men. It is a remarkable fact that in one cave at Mentone, on the Riviera, explored by the Prince of Monaco, two skeletons have been found belonging to a shortish negro-like race (indicated by the form of the skull), and apparently a little later in date than the Neandermen. We must remember that at that remote date there was continuous land connection between Europe and Africa. There is, in fact, no reason to suppose that a pygmy race ever existed in Europe, though, of course, individuals of exceptionally small stature are often produced, and in some regions the whole population is shorter than it is in others. * * * * *