474 Trcmsactions. — Miscellaneous. 



I am of opinion too that the abundance of easilj^-got food which they 

 now have in regular supply — food too which is irifinitely 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 Sexes. 



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 24,303. 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 their 

 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 

 this strange phenomenon I feel unable to give any satisfactory reasons, 

 though I believe there are many combining to produce this result — (1.) 

 Male children predominate in mountainous countries, and it is only for 

 about a generation and a half that the Maoris have dwelt on the plains. 



