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ophngous people arc not more prolific than others. In Greenland and 

 amongst the Esquimaux, says Forster, where the natives live chiefly on 

 fish,, seals, and oily animal substances, the women seldom bear children 

 oftener than three or four times. Five or six births are reckoned a very 

 extraordinary instance. The Passerais, whom we saw, had not above 

 two or three children belonging- to each family, though their common 

 food consisted of mussels, fish and seal flesh. The New Zealanders 

 absolutely feed on fish, and yet no more than three or four children are 

 found in the most prolific families." Amongst the Andamanese, whose 

 chief diet may be said to be fresh fish and pork, it is very rare to find 

 so many as three children in one family ; and as they do not indulge in 

 such early marriages as the natives of India, that reason cannot 

 be adduced to account for their paucity of offspring. In Burma, it is 

 sometimes advanced that the chief reafton why the Burmese are not more 

 prolific is because they consume so much fish, and they cannot be con- 

 sidered, in comparison with other Asiatic nations, as given to very early 

 marriages. The least prolific races I have personally seen appear to be 

 the Nairs of Malabar, the Burmese, and the Andamanese ; the first never 

 touch fish, but their ladies are espoused to the whole of their own and 

 the males of any superior caste. The Burmese wives are faithful to one 

 husband so long as he lives in the neighbourhood, or is only tem- 

 porarily absent. The Andamanese are reputed to be very particular 

 in only having one, and not changing him so long as they are 

 both alive. The Nairs and Burmese are well off and have good 

 domiciles; the Andamanese live more like wild beasts in the jungles 

 than human beings, are destitute of clothes and houses, and are 

 alternately feasting and pinched with hunger as food is common or 

 the reverse. 



415. For the natives of the plains of Asia it appears very question- 

 Fish diet probably more suit- abl * whether fresh fish is not more suitable 

 able to the inhabitants of the as lood, than the flesh of sheep, ^ pigs and 

 plains of Asia than that of poultry. Anyhow, in certain situations, as the 

 mammals. Malabar Coast, the Andaman Islands, and 



Burma, where sheep deteriorate so rapidly, healthy indigenous 

 fresh fish must be more suitable, as diet for natives, than the 

 exotic sheep. In Europe, mutton appears to be superior to 

 fish ; thus, during Lent, persons who change from meat to fish are asserted 

 to complain of debility, which may be due to a sudden alteration in their 

 diet. Jockeys, however, when " wasting" themselves, are said to take 

 fish instead of meat. But fish-eating people in many parts of the 

 world are models of strength, and a fish diet can hardly be asserted 

 as conducing to the deterioration of the physique of races. Opinions, 

 however, are divided as to the nutritious qualities of fish in northern 

 climates. Leenwenhoek (Select Works, i., p. 154) observes : " At 

 a town in my neighbourhood, where the people get their living by 

 fishing, and feed principally on fish, especially when they are on the 

 sea, the men are very robust and healthy even to a great age. * * It 

 is also my opinion that a fish diet is more wholesome than flesh, parti- 

 cularly to those persons who do not use much exercise, because fish 

 is more easily comminuted and digested in the stomach and bowels 

 than flesh/-' 



