Crossword-Solution: MELANISM 8 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 12

True total melanism is unknown in man, in whom is only observed partial melanism, characterized simply by a pronounced coloration of part of the integument.

Some curious instances have been related of an infant with a two-colored face, and of others with one side of the face white and the other black; whether they were cases of partial albinism or partial melanism cannot be ascertained from the descriptions.

Looking to the cases which I have collected of cross-bred animals closely resembling one parent, the resemblances seem chiefly confined to characters almost monstrous in their nature, and which have suddenly appeared—such as albinism, melanism, deficiency of tail or horns, or additional fingers and toes; and do not relate to characters which have been slowly acquired through selection.

MELANISM.—The opposite of albinism; an undue development of colouring material in the skin and its appendages.

CHAPTER XVI A SERPENT MYSTERY A new feeling about snakes--Common snakes of the country--A barren weedy patch--Discovery of a large black snake--Watching for its reappearance--Seen going to its den--The desire to see it again--A vain search--Watching a bat--The black serpent reappears at my feet-- Emotions and conjectures--Melanism--My baby sister and a strange snake--The mystery solved.