36 WALTER HEAPB. 



increase of births occurred with striking regularity in April, 

 showing that a maximum of conceptions takes place in July. 



Hill says that ten years' statistics of the district in which 

 he lived in India show that the maximum of conceptions 

 occurs in December, when food is cheapest and the salubrity 

 of the country at its best; while the minimum of conceptions 

 occurs in September, towards the end of the hot season, 

 when food is most scarce and malaria rife. 



Ploss shows that in Russia the maximum of conceptions 

 takes place in autumn, in Germany during May and December, 

 while in Italy and France May is the month responsible for 

 most conceptions. This author also points out that in Russia 

 religion affects the birth-curve, and he traces the cause to 

 fasting seasons. 



Westermarck goes very fully into this matter, and has 

 collected a great many facts bearing upon it which are of 

 great interest. The sexual instinct in civilised man, he 

 concludes, has two special seasons of activity — spring and 

 autumn, but it is most active towards the end of spring as a 

 rule, in the south of Europe this activity being most marked 

 somewhat earlier than it is in the more northern countries. 



Illegitimate births, it is remarked, are comparatively more 

 numerous in early spring, and this, it is suggested, is due to 

 an increase of sexual instinct during May and June. 



These conclusions are interesting inasmuch as they indicate 

 a season or seasons which may be the original sexual seasons ; 

 but it is the evidence he produces of the sexual seasons of 

 more savage peoples which is of special interest here. 



Some of the Indians of California are stated to have a 

 regular sexual season, spring being a literal St. Valentine's 

 Day with them. 



The Watch-and-dies of West Australia and the Tasmanians 

 have sexual feasts in the middle of spring-time. 



The Hos, an Indian hill tribe, have a similar feast, which 

 becomes a saturnalia during which absolute sexual freedom 

 is indulged in, in the month of January; while among the 

 Santals, another hill tribe, marriages mostly take place in 



