338 Proceedings of Roycd Society of Edinburgh. [july 4 , 
eluded a certain number of their elder brothers who had died without 
male issue. In some cases, these were themselves peers, and were 
succeeded by their younger brothers. In other cases, they w T ere the 
eldest sons or nephews of peers, and would have succeeded to the 
title if they had lived ; but they died before the succession to the 
title opened to them, so that the next brother succeeded. If these 
men had left sons who succeeded to the title, they would have 
appeared in my classification as peers’ fathers ; but in consequence 
of their having no sons, they are placed in my class of peers’ 
brothers : and this circumstance causes that class to include an 
undue proportion of men who died without issue. The same 
remark applies to the class of peers’ uncles, which includes a 
number of elder brothers of the peers’ fathers, who died without 
leaving issue. The obvious way of eliminating this source of 
error is to exclude from observation all such elder brothers of the 
peers, and all uncles who were elder brothers of the fathers ; and to 
consider only the younger brothers of the peers, and the younger 
brothers of the fathers, who, for brevity, may be called “ younger 
uncles”. When this was done, I got the figures shown in the 
following table : — 
Table C. — Marriages of the Younger Brothers of the Peers , and 
of their Fathers’ Younger Brothers. 
Age at 
Marriage. 
Y’nger Brothers. 
Younger Uncles. 
Total. 
Marriages. 
Of which 
were 
Childless. 
Marriages. 
Of which 
were 
Childless. 
Marriages. 
Of which 
were 
Childless. 
Number. 
% 
CD 
rO 
5 
6 
7. 
Number. 
7c 
16 to 29 
253 
47 
18-6 
168 
28 
16-7 
421 
75 
17-8 
30 „ 39 
161 
40 
24-8 
115 
26 
22-6 
276 
66 
23-9 
40 „ 49 
43 
17 
39-5 
46 
13 
28-3 
89 
30 
33-7 
50 „ 59 
14 
10 
714 
11 
5 
45-5 
25 
15 
60-0 
60 and upwards 
5 
4 
80-0 
5 
5 
100-0 
10 
9 
90-0 
Total 
476 
118 
24*8 
345 
77 
22-3 
821 
195 
23-8 
Comparing the figures for the younger brothers and the younger 
uncles, we see that, excluding the very few marriages at 60 and 
