418 DIMINUTION OF THE NATIVES. 
quently many different tribes, I found by an accu- 
rate muster every month at Moorunde for a period 
of three years, that the women, on an average, were 
equally numerous with the men, from which I infer 
that such is usually the case in their original and 
natural state. Taking this for granted, and com- 
paring it with the proportions of the Adelaide tribe, 
as given above, we shall find that in six years and 
a half the females had diminished from an equality 
with the males, to from 70 to 80 per cent, less, 
and of course the tribe must have sustained also a 
corresponding diminution with respect to children.* 
Again, in 1844, the Protector ascertained from 
* This result seems to be generally borne out by the few accu- 
rate returns that have hitherto been made on the subject. In 
Mr. Protector Parker’s report for his district, to the north-west 
of Port Phillip (for January, 1843), that gentleman gives a 
census of 375 male natives, and 295 female, which gives an excess 
of about 26 per cent, of males over females. In 1834 Mr. 
Commissioner Lambie gives a census, for the district of Manero, 
of 416 males and 321 females, or an excess of the former over 
the latter of nearly 45 per cent. It would appear that the 
disproportion of the sexes increases in a ratio corresponding to 
the length of time a district has been occupied by settlers and 
their stock, and to the density of the European population re- 
siding in it. Official returns for four divisions of the Colony of 
New South Wales, give a decrease of the proportion of females to 
males of fifteen per cent, in two years. Vide Aborigines Pro- 
tection Society Report, July, 1839, p. 69. In the same Report, 
p. 70, Mr. Threlkeld states, that the Official Report for one 
district gives only two women to 28 men, two boys, and no 
girls. 
