474 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
I am of opinion too that the abundance of easily-got food which they 
now have in regular supply—food too which is injinitely more nutritious than 
anything they had in the olden times before we came to the country—has led 
to a state of fatness and general plethora which, as in all the lower animals, 
leads to a lessened fertility, and in others to absolute sterility. On visiting 
Maori pas we see nearly all the young women very fat, though the old ones 
are generally very thin. All breeders of domestic animals recognize the 
fact that over-feeding leads to lessened fertility, and that the remedy is a 
restricted diet. Maori women now drink fattening beer and milk, and tea 
and sugar, in lieu of water; and eat meat, and wheat, and oats, and pota- 
toes, each and all of which they get in full supply, and every one of which 
contains far more nutriment than that in treble or quadruple the quantity 
of shell-fish, or the roots of the fern and the convolvulus. Though many 
Maori women still work hard, yet they do not work sufficiently hard to | 
carry off the extra food-supply, and very many of the wives and daughters 
of the wealthier natives do very little work indeed. Extra food-supply in 
conjunction with diminished muscular activity is I am sure an important 
factor among the many leading to the extinction of the race. The very 
early age at which the girls breed undoubtedly diminishes the fertility of 
the race. 
Disproportion of the Sewxes. 
My friend Mr. Govett quoted to me from some author a statement to 
the effect that in all flourishing races of mankind the females were in excess, 
but that in decaying races the females were in a minority. I have not been 
able to find his authority, but when applied to the Maoris it is strikingly 
correct. In Fenton’s statistics in 1859 the proportion is, males 31,667 to 
females 24,803. Colenso’s statistics (see above) give a like result. The 
still more accurate Government census of 1881 shows males 24,370 to 
females 19,720. Amongst the Kanakas in the Sandwich Islands I find a 
like disparity between the sexes, there being males 31,650, females 25,247. 
It is easy to understand why this disproportion existed in New 
Zealand before 1840, because then, as Colenso points out, in thelr 
devastating intertribal wars the female children (slaves) were sure to be 
killed first for food; and because in times of hardship women naturally 
succumb first. No such causes now exist, yet is there still this great pre 
ponderance of males; and among another branch of their own race, the 
Kanakas, the same inequality of the sexes exists. For the existence of 
