Chap. VIII.] SEXUAL SELECTION. 291 



3Ian. — In England during ten years (from 1857 to 

 1860) 707,120 children on an annual average have been 

 born alive, in the proportion of 104.5 males to 100 fe- 

 males. But in 1857 the male births throughout England 

 were as 105.2, and 1865 as 104.0 to 100. Looking to 

 separate districts, in Buckinghamshire (where on an aver- 

 age 5,000 children are annually born) the 'mean propor- 

 tion of male to female births, during the whole period of 

 the above ten years,. was as 102.8 to 100 ; while in North 

 "Wales (where the average annual births are 12,873) it was 

 as high as 106.2 to 100. Taking a still smaller district, 

 viz., Rutlandshire (where the annual births average only 

 739), in 1864 the male births were as 114.6, and in 1862 as 

 97.0 to 100; but even in this small district the average of 

 the 7,385 bu'ths during the whole ten years was as 104.5 

 to 100 ; that is, m the same ratio as throughout Eugland.^^ 

 The proportions are sometimes slightly disturbed by un- 

 known causes ; thus Prof. Faye states that " in some dis- 

 tricts of Norway there has been during a decennial period 

 a steady deficiency of boys, while in others the opposite 

 condition has existed." In France during forty-four years 

 the male to the female births have been as 106.2 to 100; 

 bu.t during this period it has occurred five times in one de- 

 partment, and six times in another, that the female births 

 have exceeded the males. In Russia the average propor- 

 tion is as high as 108.9 to 100." It is a singular fact that 

 with Jews the proportion of male births is decidedly larger 

 than with Christians ; thus in Pi'ussia the proportion is as 

 113, in Breslau as 114, and in Livonia as 120 to 100; the 

 Christian births in these countries being the same as usual, 



3- ' Twentj'-ninth Annual Report of the Registrar-General for 18G6.' 

 Ill this report (p. xii) a special decennial table is given. 



^ For Norway and Russia, see abstract of Prof. Faye's researches in 

 'British and Foreign Medico-Chirurg. Review,' April, 1867, pp. 343, 345 

 For France, the ' Annuaire pour I'An 18G7,' p. 213. 



