3©oSection III.D. C. Gini.
according to the views of several authors (Westermarck, Haycraft, Ewart),
an atavistic survival of an original season of reproduction.
Having reached this point it is natural to ask ourselves whether individuals
conceived in spring, and thus following, one might say, the primordial
custom of our species, might not be found to shew particularly favourable
characteristics Starting from this point, Ewart appears to have ascertained
that children born in the months January to March, and after them children
born in the months April to June, seem to be, at the age of eleven, as regards
stature and weight, in a particularly favourable condition. In the seventh
and twelfth year the number of the survivors of those born in the first half
of the year is clearly in excess of those born in the second half of the
year (7).
6. A close examination of materials relating to births according to months
(Tables II. and III.) cuts at the very basis of this argument.
In Europe itself (see Table II.) we find countries (Denmark, Roumania,
Croatia and Slavonia, Hungary) in which the births during January, corres
ponding to conceptions in the middle of spring, are found to be below the
mean; in others, the conceptions during spring (births between January and
March) are nearly equalled (England and Wales, Norway) or surpassed
(Ireland) by those in the summer (births between April and June).
But the gravest doubts arise when we examine the phenomena in countries
outside Europe. The data in Table III, the first of the kind, 1 think, to be
published, although not numerous enough to shew for the other parts of the
world a regularity like that found for Europe, are in any case more than
adequate to show that the regularity found for Europe does not hold good for
other countries. In North America we often see (districts of Columbia, City
of Providence, Mexico), a well defined maximum of births during the summer
and also in autumn, corresponding to conception during autumn and winter,
while the maximum of conception in the spring sometimes fails to appear
(Providence), and sometimes is just apparent (Mexico). In Greenland, besides
the highly pronounced maximum between January and March, we observe
others in May and July. In South America as in Australia, Japan, and
Bengal there is a maximum of births in the winter, but the maximum begins
to shew itself (except in Victoria), in September, October, and November ; and
in Bengal it is higher in these months than in the winter months. Finally
in Madras, Bombay, and Mauritius, the quarterly data do not shew any
maximum of conceptions in the spring, while the births corresponding to the
autumn and winter conceptions (for Bombay and Madras) and to the summer
and autumn (Mauritius) rise above the mean.
These results for many non-European countries, while they differ notably
among themselves, are at one in shewing a tendency, considering births
according to months, rather different from that observed for some time past
