A study has been made of three neighbouring populations living at 1500, 3000 and 3700 m in the northern Simien of Ethiopia. The environments of these populations not only differ in many climatic elements, but also probably in nutritional factors and exposure to infections. The growth and physique of the people vary with altitude and the lowlanders (at 1500 m) tend to have a more linear body build. Differences in chest dimensions can be related to functional differences in respiratory physiology, since the highland groups, both male and female, have larger forced expiratory volumes and forced vital capacities as compared with the lowlanders. The relationships between these measures of respiratory function and age, stature and weight also tend to be dependent on altitude, but in all the Ethiopian groups there is a closer relationship between body weight and respiratory capacity than in other populations. This distinctiveness is probably due to the characteristics of Ethiopian physique. A slight polycythaemia and elevated packed cell volume are evident in the highland groups but, unexpectedly, there is some evidence that at least at the time of the expedition the haemoglobin concentrations were lower. The highlanders also show a raised systolic blood pressure. Blood-group and demographic data suggest that the various populations are probably genetically very similar, and the findings are discussed in terms of physiological and developmental adaptability.

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A study has been made of social class distributions and their effects on marital movement in the city of Oxford from 1837 to the present day. The data have been obtained from the marriage registers of nine ecclesiastical parishes which transect the city. There is marked social class heterogeneity according to district, but when the data are combined some striking relationships between occupation and the distributions of marital distance emerge. In general distance decreases and amounts of city endogamy increase almost linearly as one moves from Class I to Class V. There appears to be, however, no very great increase in marital distance in this century as compared with the situation in the last two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Some of the differences between the social classes are due to differences in marital age, but even after this has been taken into account there remains a very statistically significant relationship between class and marital movement.

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A study has been made from parish records of the patterns of marital movement from 1837 to the present day in the Otmoor region of Oxfordshire. The social classes of brides and grooms have been taken into account.It is shown that the spatial mobility of the different classes is markedly different, and in the earlier part of the period this difference is evident even on a very local scale. Social class distributions themselves vary according to population size and this variation affects the nature of marital exchange between the different populations in the area. Spatially exogamous as compared with endogamous grooms, however, do not appear to differ in their preferences for the social class of brides. There is marked assortative marriage for social class in Classes II and IV but both brides and grooms of Class III, especially in the present century, choose their partners more or less randomly with respect to social class.