AGRICULTURAL ZOOLOGY. 353 



plaint by many farmers in this section of the country, who, in times past, had plenty of eggs, 

 and to spare, from a small number of common fowls, that, since the origin of the mania 

 which has happily been called the " Hen Fever," they have found themselves, with their 

 improved gigantic breeds, unable to procure any thing like their usual supply of eggs from 

 the same number of birds ; and that they have not only raised the birds at the expense of 

 several dollars a pound, but have been obliged to buy eggs for family use. This has become 

 such a source of annoyance and pecuniary loss, that it deserves to be considered. It is a 

 natural consequence of forcing birds from different countries and of different origins to pro- 

 pagate a hybrid offspring, for this very reason prone to degeneration, which is increased by this 

 impossibility of crossing the hybrids by the supposed pure originals. The size of the birds 

 seems to be obtained in this case at the expense of the reproductive powers. The admix- 

 ture of different original species, and breeding "in and in," have been carried beyond the 

 limits fixed by nature, and deterioration is the result. 



To ascend from birds to man, what we have seen in our domestic fowls, we find occurring 

 again in the mulatto and other hybrid human races. The mulatto is often triumphantly 

 appealed to as a proof that hybrid races are prolific without end. Every physician who has 

 seen much practice among the mulattoes knows that, in the first place, they are far less pro- 

 lific than the blacks or whites ; the statistics of New York State and City confirm this fact 

 of daily observation ; and in the second place, when they are prolific, the progeny is frail, 

 diseased, short-lived, rarely arriving at robust manhood or maturity. Physicians need not 

 be told of the comparatively enormous amount of scrofulous and deteriorated constitutions 

 found among these hybrids. 



The Colonization Journal furnishes some statistics with regard to the colored population of 

 New York City, which must prove painfully interesting to all reflecting people. The late 

 census showed that, while other classes of our population in all parts of the country were 

 increasing in an enormous ratio, the colored were decreasing. In the State of New York, 

 in 1840, there were fifty thousand ; in 1850, only forty-seven thousand. In New York City, 

 in 1840, there were eighteen thousand; in I860, seventeen thousand. According to the 

 New York City Inspector's report for the four months ending with October, 1853 



1. The whites present marriages 2,230 



" colored " " 16 



2. The whites " births 6,780 



" colored " " 70 



3. The whites " deaths about 6,000 



(exclusive of 2,152 among 116,000 newly -arrived emigrants, and others unac- 



climated.) 

 " colored exhibit deaths 160 



giving a ratio of deaths among acclimated whites to colored persons of thirty-seven to one ; 

 while the births are ninety-seven whites to one colored. The ratio of whites to colored is as 

 follows : 



Marriages, 140 to 1; births, 97 to 1; deaths, 37 to 1. 



According to the ratio of the population, the marriages among the whites, during this time, 

 are three times greater than among the colored ; the number of births among whites is twice 

 as great. In deaths, the colored exceed the whites not only according to ratio of population, 

 but show one hundred and sixty-five deaths to seventy-six births, or seven deaths to three births 

 more than two to one. The same is true of Boston, so far as the census returns will enable 

 us to judge. In Shattuck's census of 1845, it appears that in that year there were one hundred 

 and forty-six less colored persons in Boston than in 1840, the total number being 1842. 

 From the same work, the deaths are given for a period of fifty years, from 1725 to 1775, 

 showing the mortality among the blacks to have been twice that among the whites. 

 Of late years, Boston, probably, does not differ from itself in former times, nor from New 

 York at present. In the Compendium of the United States Census for 1850, p. 64, it is said 

 that the "declining ratio of the increase of the free colored in every section is notable. In 

 New England, the increase is now almost nothing ;" in the South-west and the Southern 

 States, the increase is much reduced ; it is only in the North-west that there is any increase, 

 "indicating a large emigration to that quarter." 



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