364 
SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. 
Part II. 
selves and their children, and it is a simple plan to kill 
their infants. In South America some tribes, as Azara 
states, formerly destroyed so many infants of both sexes, 
that they were on the point of extinction. In the Poly- 
nesian Islands women have been known to kill from four 
or five to even ten of their children ; and Ellis could not 
find a single woman who had not killed at least one. 
Wherever infanticide prevails the struggle for existence 
will be in so far less severe, and all the members of 
the tribe will have an almost equally good chance of 
rearing their few surviving children. In most cases 
a larger number of female than of male infants are 
destroyed, for it is obvious that the latter are of most 
value to the tribe, as they will when grown up aid in de- 
fending it, and can support themselves. But the trouble 
experienced by the women in rearing children, their 
consequent loss of beauty, the higher estimation set on 
them and their happier fate, when few in number, are 
assigned by the women themselves, and by various ob- 
observers, as additional motives for infanticide. In 
Australia, where female infanticide is still common, Sir 
G. Grey estimated the proportion of native women to 
men as one to three ; but others say as two to three. 
In a village on the eastern frontier of India, Colonel 
IVlacculloch found not a single female child . 11 
When, owing to female infanticide, the women of a 
tribe are few in number, the habit of capturing wives 
lroin neighbouring tribes would naturally arise. ° Sir J. 
Lubbock, however, as we have seen, attributes the prac- 
tice in chief part, to the former existence of communal 
marriage, and to the men having consequently captured 
11 Dr. Gerland (‘ Ueber das Aussterben der Naturvolker ’ 1SG8) has 
collected much information on infanticide, see especially s 07 51 54. 
Azara (‘ Voyages,’ &c tom. ii. p. 94, 116) enters in detail on the motives, 
bee also M'Lennan (ibid. p. 139) for cases in India. 
