REPORT OF THE ANTHROPOMETRIC COMMITTEE. 285 
Infants at Birth. Table XV. 
54. The statistics relating to infants at birth have been tabulated 
separately, because the conditions of measurement differ from those of 
other children, the stature having been taken in the recumbent position, 
and the weight without clothing. The parents of the infants were 
English and Scotch ; and although the charitable institutions from which 
the observations were obtained are situated in London and Edinburgh, 
persons bred in the country are frequently admitted as inmates, and it 
is probable, therefore, that the statistics fairly represent the labouring 
classes. Observations on infants of other classes of society could not be 
obtained. The statistics refer only to infants presumably born at the full 
period of gestation, and contain the due proportion of twin births. The 
table is constructed to show the relative stature and weight of each infant, 
and the differences between the sexes. 
55. The table is one of great interest to the student examining the 
physical development and the physical improvement of a race, as it 
presents the materials with which he has to deal in its earliest and simplest 
form. According to this table the average length of male infants is 
19°52 inches, and of females 19°32 inches, showing a difference of onl 
one-fifth of aninch. The average naked weight of male infants is 7°12 lbs.,. 
and of females 6°94 lbs., a difference of about 3 ounces in favour of males. 
The range of height between the tallest and shortest male infants is 10 
inches, while that of boys of 15 years, when the disturbing influences of 
puberty are present, is 27 inches. This wide range in adolescence becomes 
contracted in adults to 20 inches. The range of height of female infants 
is two inches less than that of male infants, which may be due to accidental 
causes, but which suggests a less disposition to variation in the size in 
females than in males,’ and which may be the cause of the greater freedom 
of female infants from accidents at the time of birth. It has been ascertained 
that still births occur in this country in the proportion of 140 males to 100 
fernales, and this higher death-rate of male infants has been attributed to 
their greater size. We have no statistics of the size or weight of still-born 
infants, although they could be more easily obtained than those of living 
infants, but the table before us would seem to confirm this view, as the 
largest surviving infants are those of males. It would appear, therefore, 
that the physical (and most probably the mental) proportions of a race, 
and their uniformity within certain limits, are largely dependent on the 
size of the female pelvis, which acts as a gauge, as it were, of the race, and 
eliminates the largest infants, especially those with large heads (and pre- 
sumably more brains), by preventing their survival at birth.? 
} The greater disposition to vary in range of stature of males than females has 
been already referred to in the Report of the Committee for 1880, p. 141, in connection 
with Sir Rawson Rawson’s analysis of the successive annual measurements of 12 
boys and 13 girls made by Professor Bowditch, of Harvard, United States. ‘A marked 
feature in the charts when compared together is the greater regularity and parallel- 
ism of the growth of the girls, especially at the earlier periods of life.’ 
? To ascertain if there is any difference between the circumference of the skull as 
compared with that of the pelvis in adults of very different races of man, Mr. 
Roberts has measured the skulls and pelves of some European and Andamanese 
