THE DECLINING BIRTH RATE 129 
stock, the Society of Mayflower Descendants.1. By means of 
questionnaires we have obtained data concerning families of the 
California branch of this Society. The size of the family was 
found to decrease with the recency of the birth of the parents. 
The size of the family of parents born in successive periods is 
shown in the following table: 
Declining Birth Rate of the Mayflower Descendants 
Husbands & 
Husbonds |r, stands &| Tsbands | wives both lrrushands & 
Husbands &| born 5 born born . 
wives both wives both 
wives born | between between between 
born born 
between | 1830-1840 1850-1860 | 1860-1880: 
1810-18. wives after besten wives after ie | Coe 
2 1840-1860 families | 1350-1880 
1840 1860 probably 
completed 
No. of children... .....- 6.0 5.6 3-33 3-0 2.11 T:§ 
(4 families)|(27 families)|(8 families)|(45 families}|(2z0 families) 
Mother's family........ 9-5 ie 4.52 4.28 3°54 3-82 
Father's family........- 8.0 ee 5-15 5.62 3-94 4.0 
It is possible that a few children may yet be born to the parents 
of the last age group, viz., those in which the mothers were born 
between 1870 and 1880. As only 8 of the mothers in this group 
were less than 45 years of age, and as all of them are over 38, the 
children from this group will be very few. Perhaps the average 
number of children per family of the Mayflower descendants 
is somewhat larger than our results indicate, but it is not probable 
that the number of children would be more than two and a half 
per married couple, a number obviously insufficient to main- 
tain the stock. 
Whatever we may say for the eugenic qualities of our citizens 
of foreign extraction, and many of them doubtless represent an 
excellent inheritance, we cannot but regard the disappearance 
of such stock as the Adams, Lowells, Edwards, and Lees as noth- 
ing short of a grave national misfortune. 
The most serious menace to racial welfare, not only in America, 
but in most civilized lands, is the relative sterility of superior 
1 Jour. Hered., Vol. 9, 296-300. 
