112 Darwin- Wallace Celebration. 



inhabitants of this new world therefore might be considered 

 as living principally by hunting and fishing * ; and the 

 narrow limits to this mode of subsistence are obvious. The 

 supplies derived from fishing could reach only those who 

 were within a certain distance of the lakes, the rivers, or 

 the sea-shore ; and the ignorance and indolence of the 

 improvident savage would frequently prevent him from 

 extending the benefits of these supplies much beyond the 

 time when they were actually obtained. The great extent 

 of territory required for the support of the hunter has been 

 repeatedly stated and acknowledged f. The number of 

 wild animals within his reach, combined with the facility 

 with which they may be either killed or insnared, must 

 necessarily limit the number of his society. The tribes of 

 hunters, like beasts of prey, whom they resemble in their 

 mode of subsistence, will consequently be thinly scattered 

 over the surface of the earth. Like beasts of prey, they 

 must either drive away or fly from every rival, and be 

 engaged in perpetual contests with each other %. 



Under such circumstances, that America should be very 

 thinly peopled in proportion to its extent of territory, is 

 merely an exemplification of the obvious truth, that population 

 cannot increase without the food to support it. But the 

 interesting part of the inquiry, that part, to which I would 

 wish particularly to draw the attention of the reader, is, 

 the mode by which the population is kept down to the level 

 of this scanty supply. It cannot escape observation, that 

 an insufficient supply of food to any people does not shew 

 itself merely in the shape of famine, but in other more 

 permanent forms of distress, and in generating certain 

 customs, which operate sometimes with greater force in 

 the prevention of a rising population than in its subsequent 

 destruction. 



Page 39, lines 5-21. 



In every part of the world, one of the most general 

 characteristics of the savage is to despise and degrade the 

 female sex . Among most of the tribes in America their 



* Robertson's History of America, vol. ii. b. iv. p. 127 et seq., 

 octavo edit. 1780. 



t Franklin's Miscell. p. 2. J Robertson, b. iv. p. 129. 



Robertson, b. iv. p. 103. Lettres Edif. passim. Charlevoix, Hist. 

 Nouv. Fr. torn. iii. p. 287. Voy. de Perouse. c. ix. p. 492, 4to. London. 



