SEXUAL SELECTION 319 



707,120, in tlie proportion of 104.5 males to 100 females. 

 But in 1857 the male births throiighout England were as 

 105.2, and in 1865 as 104.0 to 100. Looking to separate 

 districts, in Buckinghamshire (where about 5,000 children 

 are annually born) the mean proportion of male to female 

 births, during the whole period of the above ten years, was 

 as 102.8 to 100; while in North "Wales (where the average 

 annual births are 12,873) it was as high as 106.2 to 100. 

 Taking a still smaller district, viz., Rutlandshire (where 

 the annual births average only 739), in 1864 the male births 

 were as 114.6, and in 1862 as only 97.0 to 100; but even in 

 this small district the average of the 7,385 births; during the 

 whole ten years, was as 104.5 to 100; that is, in the same 

 ratio as throughout England." The proportions are some- 

 times slightly disturbed by unknown causes; thus Prof. 

 Faye states "that in some districts of Norway there has 

 been during a decennial period a steady deficiency of boys, 

 while in others the opposite condition has existed." In 

 France during forty-four years the male to the female 

 births have been as 106.2 to 100; but during this period 

 it has occurred five times in one department, and six times 

 in another, that the female births have exceeded the males. 

 In Eussia the average proportion is as high as 108.9, and in 

 Philadelphia, in the United States, as 110.5 to 100." The 

 average for Europe, deduced by Bickes from about seventy 

 million births, is 106 males to 100 females. On the other 

 hand, with white children born at the Cape of Good Hope, • 

 the proportion of males is so low as to fluctuate during suc- 

 cessive years between 90 and 99 males for every 100 females. 

 It is a singular fact that with Jews the proportion of male 



48 "Twenty-nintli Annual Report of the Eegistrar-General for 1866." In 

 this report (p. xii.) a special decennial table is given. 



*' For Norway and Russia, see abstract of Prof. Faye's researcbes, in 

 "Britisli and Foreign Medico-Ohirurg. Review," April, 1867, pp. 343, 345. 

 For France, the "Annuaire pour I'An 1867," p. 213. For Philadelphia, 

 Dr. Stockton-Hough, "Social Science Assoc," 1874. For the Cape of Good 

 Hope, Quetelet as quoted by Dr. H. H. Zouteveen, in the Dutch translation of 

 this work (vol. 1. p. 417), where much Information is given on the proportion 

 of the sexes. 



