Newman. — On Causes leading to the Extinction of the Maori. 475 



(2.) Abundance of food-supply to mothers is found to result in an excess of 

 male offspring. (3.) It is found elsewhere that if the male are consider- 

 ably older than the female parents, males will be in excess, and vice versa. 

 Among the Maoris the male are usually considerably older than the female 

 parents, and male births do preponderate. The statistics of civilized 

 countries show an excess of male births, this excess being in after-life 

 greatly reduced by the greater death rate existing among male children. 

 Later in life Maori women die from the evils of early breeding, and from 

 their greater liability, whilst pregnant, to take any epidemic diseases. 



Half-castes. 

 Eeasoning from analogy, it would have seemed probable that if much of 

 the infertility of the Maoris were due to purity of race and interbreeding, a 

 large fertility would have attended a cross with the more vigorous fertile 

 white race : such, however, is not the case. It is true that the marriage of 

 a white man and a Maori woman is often attended with a large family, but 

 considering how very frequent have been and still are the promiscuous 

 unions between the two races, the result is surprisingly small. No accurate 

 census exists of the half-castes, but their number of all ages and sexes is 

 probably considerably under 1,000. The half-castes are often handsome 

 and well made, but they all die young, indeed there is a wide-spread belief 

 that scarcely any attain the age of forty. Young half-caste women especially 

 die very young unless they are well cared for. Both sexes die of consump- 

 tion ; the ravages of the chief destroyer of both parent races seems to attack 

 them with intensified vigour. Topinard, writing on the respiration of 

 various races of men, tells us that the mulattos have a chest capacity 

 inferior to that of either parent race. Even in sultry Hindostan, the Topas, 

 a cross between Hindoo women and French or Portugese men, are far more 

 liable to phthisis than either parent race. Huth (" Marriage of Near Kin ") 

 says the European North American half-breeds near Quebec are peculiarly 

 liable to phthisis, and the greater number die early. I believe that this 

 lessened chest capacity is to be found in nearly all New Zealand half-castes. 

 It is true that many have handsome figures and broad shoulders, but their 

 chests are usually of the shallow type seen in the consumptives of our own 

 race. If, as seems probable, phthisis is largely increased by the presence 

 of bacilli or other organisms, it is highly probable that such European 

 microscopic organism, like introduced European grasses and other plants, 

 finds a suitable nidus in the half-caste, and flourishes with renewed 

 vigour. Be that as it may, the half-castes are a delicate race and 

 succumb early in life to phthisis. The offspring of half-castes by either 

 race are a very feeble race and rapidly tend to extinction. Though 

 the climate is excellent for both races, the crossing does not seem 



