THE EEGULATION OF NUMBERS 231 



primitive races were always in a condition of semi-starvation.^ In 

 this connexion it has to be remembered that the conception of the 

 optimum number has regard to all the conditions, and that among 

 these races, taking the degree of skill, social customs, and so on into 

 account, there would be, even if the optimum number was attained, 

 times of scarcity, if not of famine. The existence of times of 

 scarcity, therefore, is no evidence that, so far as numbers are 

 concerned, these races have not attained the best conditions 

 possible for them. It is undoubtedly the fact that they are 

 physiologically adapted to withstand periods of scarcity in 

 a manner that civihzed men are not adapted, and it is interesting 

 to observe that, according to the results of certain experiments, 

 occasional periods of semi-starvation are far less harmful than is 

 continual under- feeding.^ 



Descriptions of the Australians suggest the picture of anything 

 but an emaciated people in a condition of semi-starvation. In 

 one place Spencer and Gillen speak of them as well nourished ; ^ in 

 another place they describe a typical Arunta as ' by no means 

 poor in physique ; in fact he might often serve a sculptor for 

 a model, and, when walking behind a native, you are continually 

 struck with his proportions and beautiful carriage '.^ These 

 authors go on to say, however, that ' there are times when he is 

 hard pressed and during a long continuance of drought his Hfe is 

 not a happy one '.^ So, too, Schiirmann says of the tribes of Port 

 Lincoln : ' the male sex exhibits a great deal of unstudied natural 

 grace in their deportment, their walk is perfectly erect and free, 

 motions of the body easy and gestures natural under all circum- 

 stances.' 6 Further, we are told that ' their food, if of indifferent 

 quality, was at least wholesome and readily procurable, six hours 

 a day abundantly sufficing for that purpose, so that hunger was 

 little known ', "^ and that ' in most of the districts with an indi- 

 genous population game is so abundant compared to the number 

 of inhabitants, as to enable every one to procure for himself and 

 his family as many pounds of meat a day as his heart desired '.^ 

 Perhaps this is too optimistic a view ; there are certainly many 

 references to lean times when food is difficult to procure. ' In few 



* See Herbert Spencer, Principles of Biology, vol. ii, p. 515. * Morgulis, 



American Naturalist, vol. xlvii, p. 477. * Spencer and Gillen, Native Tribes, 



p. 44. * Same authors. Across Australia, vol. i, p. 191. ' Ibid., vol. i, 



p. 197. 8 Schiirmann, loc. cit., p. 209. ' Curr, Recollections, p. 259. 



' Semon, loc. cit., p. 217. See also Smyth, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 122. 



