70 THE PHYSIOLOGY OF REPRODUCTION 



Ploss 1 and Westermarck,^ the latter of whom goes somewhat 

 fully into the subject in a chapter on " A Human Pairing Season 

 in Primitive Times," to which the reader is referred for further 

 references on this subject.^ 



It has been shown that there is a more or less restricted 

 season for breeding among certain of the North American 

 Indians, among certain tribes in Hindustan, among many of the 

 native Austrahans, among the Esquimaux, among the natives of 

 the Andaman Islands, as well as among certain other of the more 

 primitive races of mankind. The season seems generally to 

 occur in the spring, but this is not invariably so. Annandale 

 and Robinson * state that among the Semang or aboriginal 

 tribes of the Siamese State of Jalor, children are generally 

 born only in March, or immediately after the wet season, a fact 

 which appears to imply that there is a regular sexual season 

 in June. 



Further evidence of the existence of a primitive sexual 

 season in Man is furnished by the records of the annual feasts 

 which the ancients indulged in — usually in the spring — and 

 which Frazer ^ has shown to be represented in modern European 

 countries by the May-queen festivals, and other similar customs 

 that have survived into our own time. It is well known that 

 the ancient festivals among the civiKsed peoples of the past 

 were times of great sexual hcence, and so in aU probabihty 

 were similar in origin to the hcentious feasts and dances of 

 various savage races at the present day. Their anthropological 

 significance and the intimate association between them and 

 the idea of reproduction are discussed at great length by Frazer 

 in his book entitled The Golden Bough. 



There is, moreover, evidence of a human pairing season in 

 the higher birth-rate which occurs at certain seasons in various 

 countries at the present day. Ploss has collected statistics 

 illustrating this fact in Russia, France, Italy, and Germany, 



1 Ploss, Das Weib, Leipzig, 1895. 



" Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage, London, 1891. 

 ' See also Havelook Ellis, lac. cit. 



^ Annandale and Robinson, Pascicvli Malayenses : Anthropology, Part I., 

 1903. 



^ Frazer, The Golden Sough, 2nd Edition, London, 1900. 



