SEXUAL SELECTION 341 



able, but must be received witli mucli caution. The prac- 

 tice of infanticide ceased about the year 1819, -when idolatry 

 was abolisbed and missionaries settled in tlie islands. A 

 careful census in 1839, of the adult and taxable men and 

 women in the island of Kauai and in one district of Oahu 

 (Jarves, p. 404), gives 4,723 males and 3,776 females; that 

 is in the ratio of 125.08 to 100. At the same time the 

 number of males under fourteen years in Kauai and under 

 eighteen in Oahu was 1,797, and of females of the same ages 

 1,429; and here we have the ratio of 125.75 males to 100 

 females. 



In a census of all the islands in 1850°* the males of all 

 ages amounted to 36,272, and the females to 33,128, or as 

 109.49 to 100. The males under seventeen years amounted 

 to 10,773, and the females under the same age to 9,593, or 

 as 112.3 to 100. From the census of 1872 the proportion of 

 males of all ages (including half-castes) to females is as 125.36 

 to 100. It must be borne in mind that all these returns for 

 the Sandwich Islands give the proportion of living males to 

 living females, and not of the births; and, judging from all 

 civilized countries, the proportion of males would have been 

 considerably higher if the numbers had referred to births." 



'* This is given in the Rev. H. T. Cheever's "Life in the Sandwich Islands," 

 1851, p. 277. 



'' I)r. Coulter, in describing ("Journal R. G-eograph. Soc," vol. v., 1835, p. 

 67) the state of California about the year 1830, says that the natives, reclaimed 

 by the Spanish naissionaries, have nearly all perished, or are perishing, although 

 well treated, not driven from their native land, and kept from the use of spirits. 

 He attributes this, in great part, to the undoubted fact that the men greatly ex- 

 ceed the women in number ; but he does not know whether this is due to a fail- 

 ure of female offspring, or to more females dying during early youth. The latter 

 alternative, according to all analogy, is very improbable. He adds that "infanti- 

 cide, properly so called, is not common, though very frequent recourse is had 

 to abortion." If Dr. Coulter is correct about infanticide, this case cannot be 

 advanced in support of Col. Marshall's view. From the rapid decrease of the 

 reclaimed natives, we may suspect that, as in the oases lately given, their fer- 

 tility has been diminished from changed habits of Ufe. 



I had hoped to gain some light on this subject from the breeding of dogs; 

 inasmuch as in most breeds, with the exception, perhaps, of greyhounds, many 

 more female puppies are destroyed than males, just as with the Toda infants. 

 Mr. Cupples assures me that this is usual with Scotch deer-hounds. Unfortu- 

 nately, I know nothing of the proportion of the sexes in any breed, excepting 

 greyhounds, and there the male births are to the female as 110.1 to 100. Now 



