AND FECUNDITY OF WOMEN ACCORDING TO AGE. 481 



In the last line of both tables (V. and VI.), it will be remarked that the first 

 and last proportional numbers are very low, or that at the beginning of the scale, 

 at the age of from 15 to 1.9 inclusive, fertility is comparatively very small ; and 

 that at the end of the scale, at the age of from 45 to 4.9 inclusive, fertility is again 

 comparatively very small. This no doubt depends to a great degree on the 

 circumstance, that among the women from 15 to 19 years of age, are included a 

 large proportion of immature girls, and among the women from 45 to 49 years of 

 age, a large proportion of women whose child-bearing powers have disappeared. 

 Keeping in view this undoubted partial explanation of the lowness of the figure, 

 or the lowness of fertility at these ages, the tables are seen to yield interesting 

 results. They shew that the fertility of the populations of Edinburgh and Glas- 

 gow, and of Sweden and Finland, increases gradually, till the middle of the 

 child-bearing perigd of life, or about the age of 30 years, and that then fertility 

 gradually falls off towards its complete extinction. 



My knowledge of the conditions under which my own table was framed, as 

 already stated, being exact, as compared with my knowledge of Mr Nicander's, 

 I shall, in framing conclusions, adopt the results it affords. On like grounds, I 

 shall excuse myself from proceeding to compare the easily remarked differences 

 of the results of the two tables. 



In regard, then, to the comparative fertility of our whole female population 

 at different ages, I conclude — 



1. That it increases gradually from the commencement of the child-bearing 

 period of life until about the age of 30 years is reached, and that then it still 

 more gradually declines. 



2. That it is greater in the decade of years following the climax of about 30 

 years of age, than in the decade of years preceding the climax. 



Chapter III. — The Comparative Fecundity of the whole Wives in our Population 



at Different Ages. 



I now proceed to the question of the fecundity, not fertility or productiveness, 

 of the mass of wives of different ages in Edinburgh and Glasgow. In the two 

 preceding chapters the fecundity or comparative power of production at differ- 

 ent ages has not been entered on ; in them have been considered merely the 

 actual production of children by women of different ages, and the compara- 

 tive amounts of production by the female population at different ages. It is 

 known that at all ages there is a great mass of spinsters whose productiveness 

 is not tested, and it is of course necessary, in order to determine questions of 

 fecundity, to eliminate all women not living in married life, or not having their 

 fecundity tested in the ordinary way, from our observations and calculations. In 

 this chapter, therefore, the comparison is not of mothers with women living as in 

 chapter ii., but of wives-mothers with wives. 



