SEX OF THE FCETUS. 151 



males than males of their respective species; while bitches, cats and 

 she wolves, which ordinarily permit the approaches of several dogs, 

 (fcc, engender more males than females. In fine, it is snpposed that 

 where polygamy is allowed in the human species, as in Persia and 

 Turkey, there are more girls than boys born, and that in Europe 

 where this custom is not tolerated, the contrary is generally found to 

 be the case, or at least that the proportions of the two sexes are about 

 equal. 



Consequently, it becomes probable that the nature of the sex is 

 determined by that one of the couple whose prolific power, whether 

 absolute or relative, is greatest at the moment of conception. It is 

 true that numerous researches are yet necessary, to transform this 

 proposition into a mathematical truth; but if it should ever be con- 

 firmed by authentic and careful observation, it is evident that the 

 act of procreating the sexes at will, will no longer be a chimera, and 

 that we ought not give up the hope of being able to predict to preg- 

 nant women, that they shall be delivered of a boy rather than of a 

 girl. But it is doubtful whether by adopting the course and language 

 of M. Mayer, we shall ever attain to any thing satisfactory on this 

 interesting point of physiology. 



§. III. Of the Influence of the Seasons and of 

 Fuhlic Prosperity on the Production of the 

 ISexes and on the Proportion of Conceptions. 



39'.i. An important inquiry, and which flows naturally from the 

 preceding, would be to know, whether, in poor countries or in years 

 of scarcity and in provinces where the inhabitants are naturally 

 weakly, idle and wretched, the female sex exceeds the male in num- 

 ber: in order to resolve it, it would be necessary to consult the records 

 of the civil state of people in the most opposite conditions; this work, 

 which several moderns are on the point of undertaking, has by M. 

 Bailly been already performed for the city of Celles, from which it 

 appears that the proportion of girls is decidedly larger than that of 

 boys, in that barren and poor canton. However, M. Villerme, who 

 devotes himself with such praiseworthy ardor to this branch of sta- . 

 tistics, and who has made his observations on a much larger scale, 

 has not come to the same conclusions; he has found that, in Sologne 

 and other very poor departments, there are born as large a propor- 

 tion of males as in the most opulent and agreeably situated cities; 

 that the miserable peasants of Scotland, reduced to the necessity of 

 living on potatoes and beans, procreate as many male children as the 

 rich inhabitants of the environs of London. 



After all, though it be right to state that prosperity or misery exert 



