I have found no record of a systematic study of pigmentation of the nails in the Negro. Heller,1 in his comprehensive work on the nails, referred principally to communications on this subject by Ochs2 and Templeton.3 Ochs' patient was a Negress, 37 years old, who had on all the finger-nails parallel, pigmented. longitudinal stripes, which were present from birth. Templeton3 described a pigmented longitudinal stripe occurring on the nail of the fourth finger of the left hand in a Negress of 28. It had been noticed first as a dark spot near the root of the nail nine years before, and had gradually extended out toward the free edge, increasing somewhat in width in the last two years. The pigment was shown to be in all probability melanin, and Templeton considered the pigmented stripe a nevus. He stressed the rarity of the condition, for which reason