182 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



We here see that in the interval of forty years, between 1832 

 and 1872, the population has decreased no less than sixty-eight 

 per cent.! This has been attributed by most writers to the 

 profligacy of the women, to former bloody wars, and to the severe 

 labor imposed on conquered tribes and to newly introduced dis- 

 eases, which have been on several occasions extremely destruc- 

 tive. No doubt these and other such causes have been highly ef- 

 ficient, and may account for the extraordinary rate of decrease 

 between the years 1832 and 1836; but the most potent of all the 

 causes seems to be lessened fertility. According to Dr. Ruschen- 

 berger of the U. S. Navy, Vi^ho visited these islands between 1833 

 and 1837, in one district of Hawaii, only twenty-five men out of 

 1134, and in another district only ten out of 637, had a family 

 with as many as three children. Of eighty married women, only 

 thirty-nine had ever borne children; and "the official report gives 

 "an average of half a child to each married couple in the whole 

 "island." This is almost exactly the same average as with the 

 Tasmanians at Oyster Cove. Jarves, who published his History 

 in 1843, says that "families who have three children are freed 

 "from all taxes; those having more, are rewarded by gifts of land 

 "and other encouragements." This unparalleled enactment by 

 the government well shows how infertile the race had become. 

 The Rev. A. Bishop stated in the Hawaiian 'Spectator' in 1839, that 

 a large proportion of the children die at early ages, and Bishop 

 Staley informs me that this is still the case, just as in New 

 Zealand. This has been attributed to the neglect of the children 

 by the women, but it is probably in large part due to innate 

 weakness of constitution in the children, in relation to the les- 

 sened fertility of their parents. There is, moreover, a further re- 

 semblance to the case of New Zealand, in the fact that there is a 

 large excess of male over female births: the census of 1872 gives 

 31,650 males to 25,247 females of all ages, that is 125.36 males for 

 every 100 females; whereas in all civilized countries the females 

 exceed the males. No doubt the profligacy of the women may in 

 part account for their small fertility; but their changed habits of 

 life is a much more probable cause, and which will at the same 

 time account for the increased mortality, especially of the chil- 

 dren. The islands were visited by Cook in 1779, by Vancouver in 

 1794, and often subsequently by whalers. In 1819 missionaries 

 arrived, and found that idolatry had been already abolished, and 

 other changes effected by the king. After this period there was 

 a rapid change in almost all the habits of life of the natives, and 

 they soon became "the most civilized of the Pacific Islanders." 

 One of my informants, Mr. Coan, who was born on the islands, 

 remarks that the natives have undergone a greater change in 

 their habits of life in the course of fifty years than Englishmen 

 during a thousand years. From information received from 



