380 Scientific Intelligence. — Statistics. 



not having all been obtained in the same populations, or under 

 the same influences, and consequently yielding different results, 

 according to these various influences, their numbers mutually 

 change, and the means obtained from this heterogeneous mix- 

 ture cannot afford accurate terms of comparison. This error 

 occurs in nearly all the questions which M. Villerme treats, 

 when, for that purpose, he is obliged to unite the births of se- 

 veral populations ; and, in making up our report, we might 

 perhaps have stopped here, had we not considered that the re- 

 searches which we were examining, being all similar in this re- 

 spect, might, to a certain degree, be compared together ; and 

 that, in consequence, the results at which M. Villerme has arri- 

 ved, might be presented to the Academy, not so correct as they 

 would have been had not this error existed, but as at least 

 pretty probable. Besides, we had also to consider that this 

 collection of fourteen millions of births formed the chief essence 

 of our author's investigation, and that his calculations would al- 

 ways be susceptible of rectification, when the very regular tables 

 which contain these dates should be published. The first ge- 

 neral result obtained by M. VUlerme is, that the six months in 

 which there are most births present themselves in the following- 

 order : — February, March, January, April, November, and 

 September ; which refers the conceptions to the months of May, 

 June, April, July, February, and March. Consequently, the 

 greatest number of conceptions will take place, but without 

 much regularity, during the six consecutive months, which com- 

 mence between the winter solstice and the vernal equinox, and 

 finish between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox ; 

 in other words, during the time when the sun approaches our 

 hemisphere, and rises upon our horizon. This general fact, 

 therefore, confirms a truth, which has become trivial, in conse- 

 quence of its being long observed, and which is the influence 

 exercised by the sun, light and heat together upon the impulse 

 to propagate. The images under which spring presents itself 

 have been among all nations emblems of the power which reani- 

 mates life and renders it fecund. From this first fact, one 

 might be led to think, that the months in which the sun lowers 

 most upon our horizon, are the least favourable to conception ; 

 and vet this is not the case : the period of the smallest number 



