326 S. J. HOLMES. 



reports on birth statistics issued by the Bureau of the Census 

 furnish a sufficiently large amount of data on the sex ratio of 

 Negro births to give very reliable statistical results. The 

 number of Negro births in the U. S. Registration Area from 1915 

 to 1923 inclusive totals 397,977 males and 386,348 females, giving 

 a ratio of 103.01 males to 100 females. For the same period and 

 area there were born among the whites 5,985,181 males and 

 5,651,287 females, giving a sex ratio of 105.91. The sex ratio of 

 native-born whites was somewhat higher, 106.072, while that of 

 foreign-born whites was slightly lower, 105.55. The sex ratio of 

 children of mixed marriages, native and foreign-born, showed an 

 intermediate figure, 105.84. The ratios for the Indians and 

 the Japanese were 106.06 and 106.72, respectively, figures very 

 close to the sex ratios of the Caucasians. 1 



Does the low sex ratio for Negro births indicate a peculiarity 

 of race? The comprehensive data assembled by Gini point to the 

 conclusion that the sex ratio constitutes a remarkably constant 

 peculiarity of the human species. Before concluding, therefore, 

 that the Negro sex ratio is essentially different from that of the 

 white race other explanations should be sought for. Nichols has 

 made the plausible suggestion that the low sex ratio among 

 Negroes is a consequence of ante-natal mortality. If there is a 

 greater ante-natal mortality among the Negroes than among the 

 whites, and if this mortality is relatively higher in the male sex, 

 there would naturally be a lower sex ratio among the live births 

 in the Negro race. It is a well known fact that the sex ratio of 

 still-births and abortions is unusually high. Data on still-births 

 have been published by the Bureau of the Census for only three 

 years, 1918, 1922, and 1923. These data are naturally very in- 

 complete, and different states have various ways of defining and 

 recording still-births. Nevertheless the data are quite illuminat- 

 ing in relation to the problem in question. The still-births and 

 sex ratios for different groups of the population are shown in the 

 following table: 



1 The data on births for 1924, which have just come to hand, show much the 

 same relations as those quoted. For total live births the ratio for Negroes is 103.98 

 and for all whites 105.95. The more recent data, therefore, bring the sex ratios 

 for Negroes and whites more closely together. The sex ratios for still-births are 

 as follows: total still-bhths, 137.48; total white, 137.96; native-born white, 137.81; 

 foreign-born white, 145.26; native and foreign-born, 133.6; total colored, I35- 1 ?; 

 Negro, 135-08. 



