text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/261

 we have the curious fact that we may attribute the more frequent deaths of male than female infants, especially amongst the illegitimate, at least in part to sexual selection.

It has often been supposed that the relative age of the two parents determine the sex of the offspring; and Prof. Leuckart has advanced what he considers sufficient evidence, with respect to man and certain domesticated animals, that this is one important though not the sole factor in the result. So again the period of impregnation relatively to the state of the female has been thought by some to be the efficient cause; but recent observations discountenance this belief. According to Dr. Stockton-Hough, the season of the year, the poverty or wealth of the parents, residence in the country or in cities, the crossing of foreign immigrants, &c., all influence the proportion of the sexes. With mankind, polygamy has also been supposed to lead to the birth of a greater proportion of female infants; but Dr. J. Campbell carefully attended to this subject in the harems of Siam, and concludes that the proportion of male to female births is the same as from monogamous unions. Hardly any animal has been rendered so highly polygamous as the English race-horse, and we shall immediately see that his male and female offspring are almost exactly equal in number. I will now give the facts which I have collected with respect to the proportional numbers of the sexes of various animals; and will then briefly discuss how far selection has come into play in determining the result.

Horses.—Mr. Tegetmeier has been so kind as to tabulate for me from the 'Racing Calendar' the births of race-horses during a period of twenty-one years, viz., from 1846 to 1867; 1849 being omitted, as no returns were that year published. The total births were 25,560, consisting of 12,763 males and 12,797 females, or in the proportion of 99.7 males to 100 females. As these numbers are tolerably large, and as they are drawn from all parts of England, during several years, we may with much confidence conclude that with the domestic horse, or at least with the race-horse, the two sexes are produced in almost equal numbers. The fluctuations in the proportions during successive years

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/261


text:
Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/40

16 it was well coated with the sticky substance, and then draw the finger through the mouth. Both the youths concluded that they would allow the natives to monopolize that form of eating, which was hardly to be reconciled with civilized customs. They contented themselves with spoons, which answered their purpose completely.

Poi, fish, and pork are the principal articles of food among the Hawaiians; but at a feast several articles are added that do not come into the daily bill of fare. The guide took Frank and Fred to a native luau, or festival, and pointed out the following dishes: poi, fish and pork, as already mentioned; baked ti-root, which bore a striking resemblance to molasses-cake, of which New Englanders are fond, and the resemblance included both appearance and taste; raw shrimps and limu, which is a sea-moss smelling and tasting very disagreeably to the novice; kuulaau, which is an agreeable compound of cocoa-nut and taro-root; paalolo, a combination of cocoa-nut and sweet-potato, of a sweetish taste; and two or three additional mixtures of the same sort. Then there were cuttle-fish raw and cooked, roasted dog, and a small quantity of pickled salmon, liberally dosed with red pepper. Fred suggested that as the salmon was imported, and therefore expensive, the red pepper was freely added in order that the article would be sparingly eaten.

The guide, who was a native, explained that the feast was for the purpose of enabling the giver to build a new house, and each guest was expected to pay fifty cents for his entertainment. He pointed out a calabash bowl lying on the ground as the receptacle of the money, as it was a matter of etiquette for the master not to receive the cash directly from the hands of his guests. The affair had been arranged some time beforehand, and the price of the feast was mentioned in the invitation. Everybody was in new clothes, it being one of the

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/262

 are closely like those which occur with mankind, when a small and thinly-populated area is considered; thus in 1856 the male horses were as 107.1, and in 1867 as only 92.6 to 100 females. In the tabulated returns the proportions vary in cycles, for the males exceeded the females during six successive years; and the females exceeded the males during two periods each of four years: this, however, may be accidental; at least I can detect nothing of the kind with man in the decennial table in the Registrar's Report for 1866.

Dogs.—During a period of twelve years, from 1857 to 1868, the births of a large number of greyhounds, throughout England, were sent to the 'Field' newspaper; and I am again indebted to Mr. Tegetmeier for carefully tabulating the results. The recorded births were 6878, consisting of 3605 males and 3273 females, that is, in the proportion of 110.1 males to 100 females. The greatest fluctuations occurred in 1864, when the proportion was as 95.3 males, and in 1867, as 116.3 males to 100 females. The above average proportion of 110.1 to 100 is probably nearly correct in the case of the greyhound, but whether it would hold with other domesticated breeds is in some degree doubtful. Mr. Cupples has enquired from several great breeders of dogs, and finds that all without exception believe that females are produced in excess; but he suggests that this belief may have arisen from females being less valued, and from the consequent disappointment producing a stronger impression on the mind.

Sheep.—The sexes of sheep are not ascertained by agriculturists until several months after birth, at the period when the males are castrated; so that the following returns do not give the proportions at birth. Moreover, I find that several great breeders in Scotland, who annually raise some thousand sheep, are firmly convinced that a larger proportion of males than of females die during the first year or two. Therefore the proportion of males would be somewhat larger at birth than at the age of castration. This is a remarkable coincidence with what, as we have seen, occurs with mankind, and both cases probably depend on the same cause. I have received returns from four gentlemen in England who have bred Lowland sheep, chiefly Leicesters, during the last ten to sixteen years; they amount altogether to 8965 births, consisting of 4407 males and 4558 females; that is in the proportion of 96.7 males to 100 females. With respect to Cheviot and black-faced sheep bred in Scotland, I have received returns from six breeders, two of them on a large scale, chiefly for the years 1867–1869, but some of the returns extend back to 1862. The total number recorded amounts to 50,685, consisting of 25,071 males and 25,614 females or in the proportion of 97.9 males to 100 females. If we take the English and Scotch returns together, the total number amounts to 59,650, consisting of 29,478 males and 30,172 females, or as 97.7 to 100. So that with sheep at the age of castration the females are certainly in excess of the males, but probably this would not hold good at birth.

Of Cattle I have received returns from nine gentlemen of 982 births, too few to be trusted; these consisted of 477 bull-calves and 505

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/262


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/263

 ; i.e., in the proportion of 94.4 males to 100 females. The Rev. W. D. Fox informs me that in 1867 out of 34 calves born on a farm in Derbyshire only one was a bull. Mr. Harrison Weir has enquired from several breeders of Pigs, and most of them estimate the male to the female births as about 7 to 6. This same gentleman has bred Rabbits for many years, and has noticed that a far greater number of bucks are produced than does. But estimations are of little value.

Of mammalia in a state of nature I have been able to learn very little. In regard to the common rat, I have received conflicting statements. Mr. R. Elliot, of Laighwood, informs me that a rat-catcher assured him that he had always found the males in great excess, even with the young in the nest. In consequence of this, Mr. Elliot himself subsequently examined some hundred old ones, and found the statement true. Mr. F. Buckland has bred a large number of white rats, and he also believes that the males greatly exceed the females. In regard to Moles, it is said that "the males are much more numerous than the females;" and as the catching of these animals is a special occupation, the statement may perhaps be trusted. Sir A. Smith, in describing an antelope of S. Africa (Kobus ellipsiprymnus), remarks, that in the herds of this and other species, the males are few in number compared with the females: the natives believe that they are born in this proportion; others believe that the younger males are expelled from the herds, and Sir A. Smith says, that though he has himself never seen herds consisting of young males alone, others affirm that this does occur. It appears probable that the young when expelled from the herd, would often fall a prey to the many beasts of prey of the country.

BIRDS.

With respect to the Fowl, I have received only one account, namely, that out of 1001 chickens of a highly-bred stock of Cochins, reared during eight years by Mr. Stretch, 487 proved males and 514 females; i.e., as 94.7 to 100. In regard to domestic pigeons there is good evidence either that the males are produced in excess, or that they live longer; for these birds invariably pair, and single males, as Mr. Tegetmeier informs me, can always be purchased cheaper than females. Usually the two birds reared from the two eggs laid in the same nest are a male and a female; but Mr. Harrison Weir, who has been so large a breeder, says that he has often bred two cocks from the same nest, and seldom two hens; moreover, the hen is generally the weaker of the two, and more liable to perish.

With respect to birds in a state of nature, Mr. Gould and others are convinced that the males are generally the more numerous; and as the young males of many species resemble the females, the latter would naturally appear to be the more numerous. Large numbers of pheasants are reared by Mr. Baker of Leadenhall from eggs laid by wild birds, and he informs Mr. Jenner Weir that four or five males to one female are generally produced. An experienced observer remarks,

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/263


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/264

 that in Scandinavia the broods of the capercailzie and black-cock contain more males than females; and that with the Dal-ripa (a kind of ptarmigan) more males than females attend the leks or places of courtship; but this latter circumstance is accounted for by some observers by a greater number of hen birds being killed by vermin. From various facts given by White of Selborne, it seems clear that the males of the partridge must be in considerable excess in the south of England; and I have been assured that this is the case in Scotland. Mr. Weir on enquiring from the dealers, who receive at certain seasons large numbers of ruffs (Machetes pugnax), was told that the males are much the more numerous. This same naturalist has also enquired for me from the birdcatchers, who annually catch an astonishing number of various small species alive for the London market, and he was unhesitatingly answered by an old and trustworthy man, that with the chaffinch the males are in large excess; he thought as high as 2 males to 1 female, or at least as high as 5 to 3. The males of the blackbird, he likewise maintained, were by far the more numerous, whether caught by traps or by netting at night. These statements may apparently be trusted, because this same man said that the sexes are about equal with the lark, the twite (Linaria montana), and goldfinch. On the other hand, he is certain that with the common linnet, the females preponderate greatly, but unequally during different years; during some years he has found the females to the males as four to one. It should, however, be borne in mind, that the chief season for catching birds does not begin till September, so that with some species partial migrations may have begun, and the flocks at this period often consist of hens alone. Mr. Salvin paid particular attention to the sexes of the humming-birds in Central America, and he is convinced that with most of the species the males are in excess; thus one year he procured 204 specimens belonging to ten species, and these consisted of 166 males and of only 38 females. With two other species the females were in excess: but the proportions apparently vary either during different seasons or in different localities; for on one occasion the males of Campylopterus hemileucurus were to the females as 5 to 2, and on another occasion in exactly the reversed ratio. As bearing on this latter point, I may add, that Mr. Powys found in Corfu and Epirus the sexes of the chaffinch keeping apart, and "the females by far the most numerous;" whilst in Palestine Mr. Tristram found "the male flocks appearing greatly to exceed the female in number." So again with the Quiscalus major, Mr. G. Taylor says, that in Florida there were "very few females in proportion to the males," whilst in Honduras the proportion was the other way, the species there having the character of a polygamist.

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/264


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/265

 FISH.

With Fish the proportional numbers of the sexes can be ascertained only by catching them in the adult or nearly adult state; and there are many difficulties in arriving at any just conclusion. Infertile females might readily be mistaken for males, as Dr. Günther has remarked to me in regard to trout. With some species the males are believed to die soon after fertilising the ova. With many species the males are of much smaller size than the females, so that a large number of males would escape from the same net by which the females were caught. M. Carbonnier, who has especially attended to the natural history of the pike (Esox lucius), states that many males, owing to their small size, are devoured by the larger females; and he believes that the males of almost all fish are exposed from this same cause to greater danger than the females. Nevertheless, in the few cases in which the proportional numbers have been actually observed, the males appear to be largely in excess. Thus Mr. R. Buist, the superintendent of the Stormontfield experiments, says that in 1865, out of 70 salmon first landed for the purpose of obtaining the ova, upwards of 60 were males. In 1867 he again "calls attention to the vast disproportion of the males to the females. We had at the outset at least ten males to one female." Afterwards females sufficient for obtaining ova were procured. He adds, "from the great proportion of the males, they are constantly fighting and tearing each other on the spawning-beds." This disproportion, no doubt, can be accounted for in part, but whether wholly is doubtful, by the males ascending the rivers before the females. Mr. F. Buckland remarks in regard to trout, that "it is a curious fact that the males preponderate very largely in number over the females. It invariably happens that when the first rush of fish is made to the net, there will be at least seven or eight males to one female found captive. I cannot quite account for this; either the males are more numerous than the females, or the latter seek safety by concealment rather than flight." He then adds, that by carefully searching the banks sufficient females for obtaining ova can be found. Mr. H. Lee informs me that out of 212 trout, taken for this purpose in Lord Portsmouth's park, 150 were males and 62 females.

The males of the Cyprinidæ likewise seem to be in excess; but several members of this family, viz., the carp, tench, bream and minnow, appear regularly to follow the practice, rare in the animal kingdom, of polyandry; for the female whilst spawning is always attended by two males, one on each side, and in the case of the bream by three or four males. This fact is so well known, that it is always recommended to stock a pond with two male tenches to one female, or at least with three males to two females. With the minnow, an excellent observer states, that on the spawning-beds the males are ten times as numerous as the females; when a female comes amongst the

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/265


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/266

 males, "she is immediately pressed closely by a male on each side; and when they have been in that situation for a time, are superseded by other two males."

INSECTS.

In this great Class, the Lepidoptera almost alone affords means for judging of the proportional numbers of the sexes; for they have been collected with special care by many good observers, and have been largely bred from the egg or caterpillar state. I had hoped that some breeders of silk-moths might have kept an exact record, but after writing to France and Italy, and consulting various treatises, I cannot find that this has ever been done. The general opinion appears to be that the sexes are nearly equal, but in Italy, as I hear from Professor Canestrini, many breeders are convinced that the females are produced in excess. This same naturalist, however, informs me, that in the two yearly broods of the Ailanthus silk-moth (Bombyx cynthia), the males greatly preponderate in the first, whilst in the second the two sexes are nearly equal, or the females rather in excess.

In regard to butterflies in a state of nature, several observers have been much struck by the apparently enormous preponderance of the males. Thus Mr. Bates, in speaking of several species, about a hundred in number, which inhabit the Upper Amazons, says that the males are much more numerous than the females, even in the proportion of a hundred to one. In North America, Edwards, who had great experience, estimates in the genus Papilio the males to the females as four to one; and Mr. Walsh, who informs me of this statement, says that with P. turnus this is certainly the case. In South Africa, Mr. R. Trimen found the males in excess in 19 species; and in one of these, which swarms in open places, he estimated the number of males as fifty to one female. With another species, in which the males are numerous in certain localities, he collected only five females during seven years. In the island of Bourbon, M. Maillard states that the males of one species of Papilio are twenty times as numerous as the females. Mr. Trimen informs me that as far as he has himself seen, or heard from others, it is rare for the females of any butterfly to exceed the males in number; but three South African species perhaps offer an exception. Mr. Wallace states that the females of Ornithoptera crœsus, in the Malay Archipelago, are more common and more easily caught than the males; but this is a rare butterfly. I may

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/266


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/267

 here add, that in Hyperythra, a genus of moths, Guenée says, that from four to five females are sent in collections from India for one male.

When this subject of the proportional numbers of the sexes of insects was brought before the Entomological Society, it was generally admitted that the males of most Lepidoptera, in the adult or imago state, are caught in greater numbers than the females: but this fact was attributed by various observers to the more retiring habits of the females, and to the males emerging earlier from the cocoon. This latter circumstance is well known to occur with most Lepidoptera, as well as with other insects. So that, as M. Personnat remarks, the males of the domesticated Bombyx Yamamai, are useless at the beginning of the season, and the females at the end, from the want of mates. I cannot, however, persuade myself that these causes suffice to explain the great excess of males, in the above cases of certain butterflies which are extremely common in their native countries. Mr. Stainton, who has paid very close attention during many years to the smaller moths, informs me that when he collected them in the imago state, he thought that the males were ten times as numerous as the females, but that since he has reared them on a large scale from the caterpillar state, he is convinced that the females are the more numerous. Several entomologists concur in this view. Mr. Doubleday, however, and some others, take an opposite view, and are convinced that they have reared from the eggs and caterpillars a larger proportion of males than of females.

Besides the more active habits of the males, their earlier emergence from the cocoon, and in some cases their frequenting more open stations, other causes may be assigned for an apparent or real difference in the proportional numbers of the sexes of Lepidoptera, when captured in the imago state, and when reared from the egg or caterpillar state. I hear from Professor Canestrini, that it is believed by many breeders in Italy, that the female caterpillar of the silk-moth suffers more from the recent disease than the male; and Dr. Staudinger informs me that in rearing Lepidoptera more females die in the cocoon than males. With many species the female caterpillar is larger than the male, and a collector would naturally choose the finest specimens, and thus unintentionally collect a larger number of females. Three collectors have told me that this was their practice; but Dr. Wallace is sure that most collectors take all the specimens which they can find of the rarer kinds, which alone are worth the trouble of rearing. Birds when surrounded by caterpillars would probably devour the largest; and Professor Canestrini informs me that in Italy some breeders believe, though on insufficient evidence, that in the first broods of the Ailanthus silk-moth, the wasps destroy a larger number of the female than of the male caterpillars. Dr. Wallace further remarks that female caterpillars, from being larger than the males, require more time for their development, and consume more food and moisture; and thus they would be exposed during a longer time to danger from ichneumons, birds, &c., and in times of scarcity would perish in greater numbers. Hence it appears quite possible that

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/267


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/268

 in a state of nature, fewer female Lepidoptera may reach maturity than males; and for our special object we are concerned with their relative numbers at maturity, when the sexes are ready to propagate their kind.

The manner in which the males of certain moths congregate in extraordinary numbers round a single female, apparently indicates a great excess of males, though this fact may perhaps be accounted for by the earlier emergence of the males from their cocoons. Mr. Stainton informs me that from twelve to twenty males, may often be seen congregated round a female Elachista rufocinerea. It is well known that if a virgin Lasiocampa quercus or Saturnia carpini be exposed in a cage, vast numbers of males collect round her, and if confined in a room will even come down the chimney to her. Mr. Doubleday believes that he has seen from fifty to a hundred males of both these species attracted in the course of a single day by a female in confinement. In the Isle of Wight Mr. Trimen exposed a box in which a female of the Lasiocampa had been confined on the previous day, and five males soon endeavored to gain admittance. In Australia, Mr. Verreaux, having placed the female of a small Bombyx in a box in his pocket, was followed by a crowd of males, so that about 200 entered the house with him.

Mr. Doubleday has called my attention to M. Staudinger's list of Lepidoptera, which gives the prices of the males and females of 300 species or well-marked varieties of butterflies (Rhopalocera). The prices for both sexes of the very common species are of course the same; but in 114 of the rarer species they differ; the males being in all cases, excepting one, the cheaper. On an average of the prices of the 113 species, the price of the male to that of the female is as 100 to 149; and this apparently indicates that inversely the males exceed the females in the same proportion. About 2000 species or varieties of moths (Heterocera) are catalogued, those with wingless females being here excluded on account of the difference in habits between the two sexes: of these 2000 species, 141 differ in price according to sex, the males of 130 being cheaper, and those of only 11 being dearer than the females. The average price of the males of the 130 species, to that of the females, is as 100 to 143. With respect to the butterflies in this priced list, Mr. Doubleday thinks (and no man in England has had more experience), that there is nothing in the habits of the species which can account for the difference in the prices of the two sexes, and that it can be accounted for only by an excess in the number of the males. But I am bound to add that Dr. Staudinger informs me, that he is himself of a different opinion. He thinks that the less active habits of the females and the earlier emergence of the males will account for his collectors securing a larger number of males than of females, and consequently for the lower prices of the former. With respect to specimens reared from the caterpillar-state, Dr. Staudinger believes, as previously stated, that a greater number of females than of males die whilst confined to the cocoons. He adds that with certain species one sex seems to preponderate over the other during certain years.

Of direct observations on the sexes of Lepidoptera, reared either

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/268


text:
Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/41

Rh customs that every garment worn at a feast must be quite new, and a native would rather be absent from the entertainment than violate this point of etiquette. Five or six men who served as stewards were dressed exactly alike, each of them wearing a green shirt and red trousers, made for the occasion. In addition to this, they had green wreaths on their heads, and most of the persons present had their heads decked with flowers or leaves.

The diners sat on the ground, and as they took their places their portions of roast pig, neatly wrapped in ti-leaves, were distributed to them. They were expected to be satisfied with their allowance, and etiquette forbade their asking for more of this article, though they could help themselves freely to anything else. When the feast was over each one carried away whatever of his roast pork was unconsumed. The guide said it would be very impolite to leave any portion of it, and even the bones were carried away. The feeding was not done in a hurry; a native feast lasts for several hours, the guests pausing two or three times to get up a fresh touch of appetite, and occasionally walking about, singing, dancing, talking, or laughing, in order to increase the capacity of their stomachs.

Our young friends tasted some of the dishes, and each dropped a half-dollar in the calabash bowl that was designated as the receptacle of the contributions of the guests. They carried away their portions of roast pig, and gave the packages to some urchins whom they encountered a short distance from the scene of the feast. The latter immediately sat down to enjoy the toothsome delicacy, and no doubt imagined themselves to be for the time the most favored beings in the land. Their appearance indicated that roast pig did not often enter into their bill of fare, and the rapidity with which they attacked the contents of the packages showed that they had not dined.

Frank thought it must have been a great change for the people of the islands when they abandoned their old custom of going without clothing and adopted the dress of civilization. When it is remembered that a hundred years ago the islanders were naked savages, the remark of the youth is not to be wondered at. The missionaries say that in the early days the attempts of the natives to adopt European dress were decidedly ludicrous; they could not understand the necessity of three or more garments, but thought a single one sufficient to begin with. A hat, a shirt, and a pair of trousers were considered enough for three, and some of them used to argue that these garments


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/269

 from eggs or caterpillars, I have received only the few following cases:—

So that in these eight lots of cocoons and eggs, males were produced in excess. Taken together the proportion of males is as 122.7 to 100 females. But the numbers are hardly large enough to be trustworthy.

On the whole, from these various sources of evidence, all pointing in the same direction, I infer that with most species of Lepidoptera, the mature males generally exceed the females in number, whatever the proportions may be at their first emergence from the egg.

With reference to the other Orders of insects, I have been able to collect very little reliable information. With the stag-beetle (Lucanus cervus) "the males appear to be much more numerous than the females;" but when, as Cornelius remarked during 1867, an unusal number of these beetles appeared in one part of Germany, the females appeared to exceed the males as six to one. With one of the Elateridæ, the males are said to be much more numerous than the females, and "two or three are often found united with one female; so that here polyandry seems to prevail." With Siagonium (Staphylinidæ), in which the males are furnished with horns, "the females are far more numerous than the opposite sex." Mr. Janson stated at the Entomological Society that the females of the bark feeding Tomicus villosus are so common as to be a plague, whilst the males are so rare as to be hardly known.

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/269


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/270

 It is hardly worth while saying anything about the proportion of the sexes in certain species and even groups of insects, for the males are unknown or very rare, and the females are parthenogenetic, that is, fertile without sexual union; examples of this are afforded by several of the Cynipidæ. In all the gall-making Cynipidæ known to Mr. Walsh, the females are four or five times as numerous as the males; and so it is, as he informs me, with the gall-making Cecidomyiiæ (Diptera). With some common species of Saw-flies (Tenthredinæ) Mr. F. Smith has reared hundreds of specimens from larvæ of all sizes, but has never reared a single male; on the other hand, Curtis says, that with certain species (Athalia), bred by him, the males were to the females as six to one; whilst exactly the reverse occurred with the mature insects of the same species caught in the fields. In the family of Bees, Hermann Müller, collected a large number of specimens of many species, and reared others from the cocoons, and counted the sexes. He found that the males of some species greatly exceeded the females in number; in others the reverse occurred; and in others the two sexes were nearly equal. But as in most cases the males emerge from the cocoons before the females, they are at the commencement of the breeding-season practically in excess. Müller also observed that the relative number of the two sexes in some species differed much in different localities. But as H. Müller has himself remarked to me, these remarks must be received with some caution, as one sex might more easily escape observation than the other. Thus his brother Fritz Müller has noticed in Brazil that the two sexes of the same species of bee sometimes frequent different kinds of flowers. With respect to the Orthoptera, I know hardly anything about the relative number of the sexes: Körte, however, says that out of 500 locusts which he examined, the males were to the females as five to six. With the Neuroptera, Mr. Walsh states that in many, but by no means in all the species of the Odonatous group, there is a great overplus of males: in the genus Hetærina, also, the males are generally at least four times as numerous as the females. In certain species in the genus Gomphus the males are equally in excess, whilst in two other species, the females are twice or thrice as numerous as the males. In some European species of Psocus thousands of females may be collected without a single male, whilst with other species of the same genus both sexes are common. In England, Mr. MacLachlan has captured hundreds of the female Apatania muliebris, but has never seen the male; and of Boreus hyemalis only four or five males have been seen here. With most of these species (excepting the Tenthredinæ) there is at present no evidence that the females are subject to parthenogenesis; and thus we see how ignorant we are of the causes of the apparent discrepancy in the proportion of the two sexes.

In the other Classes of the Articulata I have been able to collect still

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/270


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/271

 less information. With Spiders, Mr. Blackwall, who has carefully attended to this class during many years, writes to me that the males from their more erratic habits are more commonly seen, and therefore appear more numerous. This is actually the case with a few species; but he mentions several species in six genera, in which the females appear to be much more numerous than the males. The small size of the males in comparison with the females (a peculiarity which is sometimes carried to an extreme degree), and their widely different appearance, may account in some instances for their rarity in collections.

Some of the lower Crustaceans are able to propagate their kind asexually, and this will account for the extreme rarity of the males; thus Von Siebold carefully examined no less than 13,000 specimens of Apus from twenty-one localities, and amongst these he found only 319 males. With some other forms (as Tanais and Cypris), as Fritz Müller informs me, there is reason to believe that the males are much shorter-lived than the females; and this would explain their scarcity, supposing the two sexes to be at first equal in number. On the other hand, Müller has invariably taken far more males than females of the Diastylidæ and of Cypridina on the shores of Brazil: thus with a species in the latter genus, 63 specimens caught the same day included 57 males; but he suggests that this preponderance may be due to some unknown difference in the habits of the two sexes. With one of the higher Brazilian crabs, namely a Gelasimus, Fritz Müller found the males to be more numerous than the females. According to the large experience of Mr. C. Spence Bate, the reverse seems to be the case with six common British crabs, the names of which he has given me.

The proportion of the sexes in relation to natural selection.

There is reason to suspect that in some cases man has by selection indirectly influenced his own sex-producing powers. Certain women tend to produce during their whole lives more children of one sex than of the other: and the same holds good of many animals, for instance, cows and horses; thus Mr. Wright of Yeldersley House informs me that one of his Arab mares, though put seven times to different horses, produced seven fillies. Though I have very little evidence on this head, analogy would lead to the belief, that the tendency to produce either sex would be inherited like almost every other peculiarity, for instance, that of producing twins; and concerning the above tendency a good authority, Mr. J. Downing, has communicated to me facts which seem to prove that this does occur in certain families of short-horn cattle. Col. Marshall has recently found on careful examination that the Todas, a hill-tribe of India,

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/271


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/272

 consist of 112 males and 84 females of all ages—that is in a ratio of 133.3 males to 100 females. The Todas, who are polyandrous in their marriages, during former times invariably practised female infanticide; but this practice has now been discontinued for a considerable period. Of the children born within late years, the males are more numerous than the females, in the proportion of 124 to 100. Colonel Marshall accounts for this fact in the following ingenious manner. "Let us for the purpose of illustration take three families as representing an average of the entire tribe; say that one mother gives birth to six daughters and no sons; a second mother has six sons only, whilst the third mother has three sons and three daughters. The first mother, following the tribal custom, destroys four daughters and preserves two. The second retains her six sons. The third kills two daughters and keeps one, as also her three sons. We have then from the three families, nine sons and three daughters, with which to continue the breed. But whilst the males belong to families in which the tendency to produce sons is great, the females are of those of a converse inclination. Thus the bias strengthens with each generation, until, as we find, families grow to have habitually more sons than daughters."

That this result would follow from the above form of infanticide seems almost certain; that is if we assume that a sex-producing tendency is inherited. But as the above numbers are so extremely scanty, I have searched for additional evidence, but cannot decide whether what I have found is trustworthy; nevertheless the facts are, perhaps, worth giving. The Maories of New Zealand have long practised infanticide; and Mr. Fenton states that he "has met with instances of women who have destroyed four, six, and even seven children, mostly females. However, the universal testimony of those best qualified to judge, is conclusive that this custom has for many years been almost extinct. Probably the year 1835 may be named as the period of its ceasing to exist." Now amongst the New Zealanders, as with the Todas, male births are considerably in excess. Mr. Fenton remarks (p. 30), "One fact is certain, although the exact period of the commencement of this singular condition of the disproportion of the sexes cannot be demonstratively fixed, it is quite clear that this course of decrease was in full operation during the years 1830 to 1844, when the non-adult population of 1844 was being produced, and has continued with great energy up to the present time." The following statements are taken from Mr. Fenton (p. 26), but as the numbers

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/272


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/273

 are not large, and as the census was not accurate, uniform results cannot be expected. It should be borne in mind in this and the following cases, that the normal state of every population is an excess of women, at least in all civilised countries, chiefly owing to the greater mortality of the male sex during youth, and partly to accidents of all kinds later in life. In 1858, the native population of New Zealand was estimated as consisting of 31,667 males and 24,303 females of all ages, that is in the ratio of 130.3 males to 100 females. But during this same year, and in certain limited districts, the numbers were ascertained with much care, and the males of all ages were here 753 and the females 616; that is in the ratio of 122.2 males to 100 females. It is more important for us that during this same year of 1858, the non-adult males within the same district were found to be 178, and the non-adult females 142, that is in the ratio of 125.3 to 100. It may be added that in 1844, at which period female infanticide had only lately ceased, the non-adult males in one district were 281, and the non-adult females only 194, that is in the ratio of 144.8 males to 100 females.

In the Sandwich Islands, the males exceed the females in number. Infanticide was formerly practised there to a frightful extent, but was by no means confined to female infants, as is shewn by Mr. Ellis, and as I have been informed by Bishop Staley and the Rev. Mr. Coan. Nevertheless, another apparently trustworthy writer, Mr. Jarves, whose observations apply to the whole archipelago, remarks:—"Numbers of women are to be found, who confess to the murder of from three to six or eight children," and he adds, "females from being considered less useful than males were more often destroyed." From what is known to occur in other parts of the world, this statement is probable; but must be received with much caution. The practice of infanticide ceased about the year 1819, when idolatry was abolished and missionaries settled in the islands. A careful census in 1839 of the adult and taxable men and women in the island of Kauai and in one district of Oahu (Jarves, p. 404), gives 4723 males and 3776 females; that is in the ratio of 125.08 to 100. At the same time the number of males under fourteen years in Kauai and under eighteen in Oahu was 1797, and of females of the same ages 1429; and here we have the ratio of 125.75 males to 100 females.

In a census of all the islands in 1850, the males of all ages

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/273


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/274

 amount to 36,272, and the females to 33,128, or as 109.49 to 100. The males under seventeen years amounted to 10,773, and the females under the same age to 9593, or as 112.3 to 100. From the census of 1872, the proportion of males of all ages (including half-castes) to females, is as 125.36 to 100. It must be borne in mind that all these returns for the Sandwich Islands give the proportion of living males to living females, and not of the births; and judging from all civilised countries the proportion of males would have been considerably higher if the numbers had referred to births. Dr. Coulter, in describing ('Journal R. Geograph. Soc.,' vol. v. 1835, p. 67) the state of California about the year 1830, says that the natives, reclaimed by the Spanish missionaries, have nearly all perished, or are perishing, although well treated, not driven from their native land, and kept from the use of spirits. He attributes this, in great part, to the undoubted fact that the men greatly exceed the women in number; but he does not know whether this is due to a failure of female offspring, or to more females dying during early youth. The latter alternative, according to all analogy, is very improbable. He adds that "infanticide, properly so called, is not common, though very frequent recourse is had to abortion." If Dr. Coulter is correct about infanticide, this case cannot be advanced in support of Col. Marshall's view. From the rapid decrease of the reclaimed natives, we may suspect that, as in the cases lately given, their fertility has been diminished from changed habits of life. I had hoped to gain some light on this subject from the breeding of dogs; inasmuch as most breeds, with the exception, perhaps, of greyhounds, many more female puppies are destroyed than males, just as with the Toda infants. Mr. Cupples assures me that this is usual with Scotch deer-hounds. Unfortunately, I know nothing of the proportion of the sexes in any breed, excepting greyhounds, and there the male births are to the female as 110.1 to 100. Now from enquiries made from many breeders, it seems that the females are in some respects more esteemed, though otherwise troublesome; and it does not appear that the female puppies of the best-bred dogs are systematically destroyed more than the males, though this does sometimes take place to a limited extent. Therefore I am unable to decide whether we can, on the above principles, account for the preponderance of male births in greyhounds. On the other hand, we have seen that with horses, cattle, and sheep, which are too valuable for the young of either sex to be destroyed, if there is any difference, the females are slightly in excess.

From the several foregoing cases we have some reason to believe that infanticide practised in the manner above explained, tends to make a male-producing race; but I am far from supposing that this practice in the case of man, or some analogous process with other species, has been the sole determining cause of an excess of males. There may be some unknown law leading to this result in decreasing races, which have already become somewhat infertile. Besides the several causes previously

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/274


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/275

 alluded to, the greater facility of parturition amongst savages, and the less consequent injury to their male infants, would tend to increase the proportion of live-born males to females. There does not, however, seem to be any necessary connection between savage life and a marked excess of males; that is if we may judge by the character of the scanty offspring of the lately existing Tasmanians and of the crossed offspring of the Tahitians now inhabiting Norfolk Island.

As the males and females of many animals differ somewhat in habits and are exposed in different degrees to danger, it is probable that in many cases, more of one sex than of the other are habitually destroyed. But as far as I can trace out the complication of causes, an indiscriminate though large destruction of either sex would not tend to modify the sex-producing power of the species. With strictly social animals, such as bees or ants, which produce a vast number of sterile and fertile females in comparison with the males, and to whom this preponderance is of paramount importance, we can see that those communities would flourish best which contained females having a strong inherited tendency to produce more and more females; and in such cases an unequal sex-producing tendency would be ultimately gained through natural selection. With animals living in herds or troops, in which the males come to the front and defend the herd, as with the bisons of North America and certain baboons, it is conceivable that a male-producing tendency might be gained by natural selection; for the individuals of the better defended herds would leave more numerous descendants. In the case of mankind the advantage arising from having a preponderance of men in the tribe is supposed to be one chief cause of the practice of female infanticide.

In no case, as far as we can see, would an inherited tendency to produce both sexes in equal numbers or to produce one sex in excess, be a direct advantage or disadvantage to certain individuals more than to others; for instance, an individual with a tendency to produce more males than females would not succeed better in the battle for life than an individual with an opposite tendency; and therefore a tendency of this kind could not be gained through natural selection. Nevertheless, there are certain animals (for instance, fishes and cirripedes) in which two or more males appear to be necessary for the fertilisation of the female; and the males accordingly largely preponderate, but it is by no means obvious how this male-producing tendency could have been acquired. I formerly thought that when a tendency to produce the two sexes in equal numbers was advantageous to the species, it would follow from natural selection, but I now

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/275


text:
Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/276

 see that the whole problem is so intricate that it is safer to leave its solution for the future.

animals belonging to the lower classes, the two sexes are not rarely united in the same individual, and therefore secondary sexual characters cannot be developed. In many cases where the sexes are separate, both are permanently attached to some support, and the one cannot search or struggle for the other. Moreover it is almost certain that these animals have too imperfect senses and much too low mental powers, to appreciate each other's beauty or other attractions, or to feel rivalry.

Hence in these classes or sub-kingdoms, such as the Protozoa, Cœlenterata, Echinodermata, Scolecida, secondary sexual characters, of the kind which we have to consider, do not occur; and this fact agrees with the belief that such characters in the higher classes have been acquired through sexual selection, which depends on the will, desire, and choice of either sex. Nevertheless some few apparent exceptions occur; thus, as I hear from Dr. Baird, the males of certain Entozoa, or internal parasitic worms, differ slightly in colour from the females; but we have no reason to suppose that such differences have been augmented through sexual selection. Contrivances by which the male holds the female, and which are indispensable for the propagation of the species, are independent of sexual selection, and have been acquired through ordinary selection.

Many of the lower animals, whether hermaphrodites or with separate sexes, are ornamented with the most brilliant tints, or are shaded and striped in an elegant manner; for instance, many corals and sea-anemones (Actiniæ), some jelly-fish (Medusæ, Porpita, &c.), some Planariæ, many star-fishes, Echini, Ascidians, &c.; but we may conclude from the reasons already indicated, namely the union of the two sexes in some of these animals, the permanently affixed condition of others, and the low mental powers of all, that such colours do not serve as a sexual attraction, and have not been acquired through sexual selection.

title: Page:Descent of Man 1875.djvu/276


text: Index:God's prohibition of the marriage with a.pdf


text: Index:The War on German Submarines - Carson, 1917.djvu


text: The War on German Submarines

title: The War on German Submarines


text: Author:George Willis Botsford

title: Author:George Willis Botsford


text: Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/206


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/335

 Rh future. We talk of eugenics as if it were a new thing, but I suspect that it has a long history behind it. Simple communities such as those of the Nāga hills, as I think, do indeed recognise the social importance of these vital processes. Their recognition may at best be but imperfect, indirect, and subconscious. The rites they perform as organised communities in the active presence of these processes afford indications both of the nature of, and of the degree of intensity of, their feelings towards social phenomena. These rites are the outward expression of the faith that is in them. They are customary rites, and have therefore a peculiar extrinsic validity. As Hobhouse acutely remarked,—"At a low grade of reflection there is little room for doubting that at bottom custom is held sacred because it is custom. It is that which is handed on by tradition and forms the mould into which each new mind is cast as it grows up. Thus, while for society it is custom, for the individual it has something of the force of habit and more than habit." I seek to show that in this small area, where with all its diversity of custom there is substantial homogeneity of culture, the end which these rites serve is often consciously realised as a social end, beneficial to them as organised communities. We have views as to causality in the physical world which are not theirs. The means they employ have in our eyes no sort of quantitative or qualitative relation to the ends they seek to compass.

Nāga communities are simple in structure. Here and there are groups of villages in political subordination to one large and powerful village, but Meithei rule has broken up and put an end to such troublesome agglomerations. The village groups of Mao and Maikel offer something


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/336

298 more nearly resembling tribal unity. They are believed to be related, and legend attributes their present separation to a religious schism. In each case there is a common gennabura, or priest-chief, who exercises great but strictly constitutional authority in matters of ritual. Yet in matters of coiffure and costume there are tribal resemblances which, taken with linguistic identities, serve as tribal marks. To certain food tabus extending to members of tribes I shall recur presently. As a general rule it may be said that each village forms an independent, self-contained group. The natural environment makes for the multiplication of such small self-contained communities. Yet, where colonisation is recent, the colony,—if we may call it a colony,—preserves its connection with the mother village by regarding the same marriage regulations. A Nāga village consists of a number of clans, never less, as I found, than three, and sometimes as many as twelve or more. The usual story is that the village was founded by a band of brothers, who are often the eponyms of the clans. These clans each occupy a well-marked area or quarter of the village, and are not intermixed. Marriage is forbidden within the clan, so that the married women in any clan are always brought in from outside, from some other clan or from some other village. The tendency is for women to be taken from some clan in the same village rather than to introduce women from other villages, and they tell me that they would not marry women from a village whose dialect they do not understand, thus employing a rough linguistic test which in practice answers well enough. In one village I found that the four component clans were arranged in pairs. Each pair formed an exogamous whole, and the reason advanced for this was that they were related. Each clan is composed of a number of families, each owning a separate house. There yet remain villages where exist Bachelors* Halls, institutions which are, I fear, doomed


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/337

Rh to disappear, as modern methods of taxation tend to introduce modifications in the economic environment, with corresponding changes in social structure. The Bachelors' Hall is an institution which is found in many parts of the world. In this area it is universal in some form or other. In Meithei literature reference to the Pākhonvāl and to the Ningonvāl to the Pākhonlakpa, to the Nahārakpa, and to the Ningonlakpa is constant, thus proving that there they had the Bachelors' Hall, the Spinsters' Hall, and officials to look after the young unmarriageable males, the young marriageable males, and the unmarried girls. From the Nāgas of the north to the Lushais on the south comes evidence that these houses for the men were strictly forbidden to women.

It seems that married men were bound to live in the Men's House till old age, visiting their wives by stealth and at night only. I know of cases where the men live in the Men's House till marriage, and we have, as I have pointed out above, the household system where the paterfamilias, his wife, and children live together under one roof, until the sons and daughters marry and depart. This separation of the sexes, whether in its modified form or in its severer mode, is a social fact of importance related to social structure. The earliest differentiation of function in economics follows the line of cleavage by sex. In these communities where the men must wive themselves from another clan, the women, if married, are ex hypothesi daughters of another clan, and, if unmarried, are at least prospectively associates of some other clan. The permanent element is therefore small. Yet women are


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/338

300 recognised as part and parcel of the village or clan in which they happen to be, whether as wives or as daughters, since some of the cultivation rites demand the active presence and co-operation of the women of the village. The beginning and the end of the cultivating season are celebrated by a village genna or communal festival, the most conspicuous feature of which is the tug-of-war between the women and the girls on one side and the men and the boys on the other. What is with the Nāgas a serious business has become among the Meitheis a mere pastime, since we find mention in the Meithei Chronicles of the pleasure which barbarous royalty took on occasion in similar tugs-of-war.

Eschatological belief often affords valuable light on customs otherwise difficult of explanation. It emphasises the division of the village communities by sex. Colonel Shakespear tells us that Pupaola always shoots at women, and that the dead at whom he shoots drink of the waters of Lethe, and are never minded to return to earth. The heaven which serves as a baby factory, as Mr. Hartland calls it, is open only to certain meritorious males, especially to those who have been beloved of many women, a belief also found among the Garos.

Among the Mao Nāgas is held the belief that a grim deity stands at the gates of heaven and guards against intrusion, so that the warrior must needs enter the kingdom of heaven by violence and fight with the warder of its gates. This belief regulates mortuary ritual. The implements put in a woman's grave are certainly of very little use for combat with a stalwart deity.

In fact the line of cleavage is primarily by sex, both in heaven and on earth. The Nāga heaven is divided into


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/339

Rh many mansions, which afford an interesting, though indirect, light on their own views of social segmentation. It is true and natural that these beliefs are not very distinct and clear.

Here and there in this area, but not among Nāga tribes, we find legends that the first man was born from an egg. As a rule the Nāga legend brings their progenitor from the bowels of the earth,—already a married man, accompanied by a family. Since then, the supply of ready-made families has ceased. When working at the eschatological beliefs of the Nāgas recently, I observed that a belief, perhaps rather a tattered belief, in the reincarnation of the good and the annihilation of the bad was a cardinal feature of their system. I have been assured that incontestable proof of the truth of this belief, that men when dead return to life, is afforded by the startling likeness which children are seen to bear to some deceased relative. Nāga society does not always renew itself with new material. It sometimes gets old stuff back again from the stores of vital essence. Colonel Shakespear tells us how the Lushais believe that, "after a certain period in one of these two abodes of departed spirits, the spirit is born again as a hornet and after a time assumes the form of water, and if, in the form of dew, it falls on a man, it is reborn as his child. I have pointed above to beliefs which seem to give warrant for the view that only men are eligible for the intermediate heaven from which return to earth is possible. We find among the Nāga tribes that, if a woman died in childbirth, (an event of rare occurrence), the child was never allowed to live, because they believed it to be an evil spirit, a disembodied ghost, incarnated in the mother whose death it had caused.

What is the explanation of the rule which forbids unmarried girls to eat the flesh of male animals. I own


text:
Page:Pictures From Italy.djvu/22

10 with beards down to their waists, and blue spectacles awfully shading their warlike eyes, and very big sticks clenched in their National grasp. Also the Malle Poste, with only a couple of passengers, tearing along at a real good dare-devil pace, and out of sight in no time. Steady old Curés come jolting past, now and then, in such ramshackle, rusty, musty, clattering coaches as no Englishman would believe in; and bony women daudle about in solitary places, holding cows by ropes while they feed, or digging and hoeing, or doing field-work of a more laborious kind, or representing real shepherdesses with their flocks—to obtain an adequate idea of which pursuit and its followers, in any country, it is only necessary to take any pastoral poem, or picture, and imagine to yourself whatever is most exquisitely and widely unlike the descriptions therein contained.

You have been travelling along, stupidly enough, as you generally do in the last stage of the day; and the ninety-six bells upon the horses—twenty-four apiece—have been ringing sleepily in your ears for half an hour or so; and it has become a very jog-trot, monotonous, tiresome sort of business; and you have been thinking deeply about the dinner you will have at the next stage; when, down at the end of the long avenue of trees through which you are travelling, the first indication of a town appears, in the shape of some straggling cottages: and the carriage begins to rattle and roll over a horribly uneven pavement. As if the equipage were a great firework, and the mere sight of a smoking cottage chimney had lighted it, instantly it begins to crack and

title: Page:Pictures From Italy.djvu/22


text:
Page:Pictures From Italy.djvu/23

Rh splutter, as if the very devil were in it. Crack, crack, crack, crack. Crack-crack-crack. Crick-crack. Crick-crack. Helo! Hola! Vite! Voleur! Brigand! Hi hi hi! En r-r-r-r-r-route! Whip, wheels, driver, stones, beggars, children; crack, crack, crack; helo! hola! charité pour l'amour de Dieu! crick-crack-crick-crack; crick, crick, crick; bump, jolt, crack, bump, crick-crack; round the corner, up the narrow street, down the paved hill on the other side; in the gutter; bump, bump; jolt, jog, crick, crick, crick; crack, crack, crack; into the shop-windows on the left hand side of the street, preliminary to a sweeping turn into the wooden archway on the right; rumble, rumble, rumble; clatter, clatter, clatter; crick, crick, crick; and here we are in the yard of the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'Or; used up, gone out, smoking, spent, exhausted; but sometimes making a false start unexpectedly, with nothing coming of it—like a firework to the last! The landlady of the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and the landlord of the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and the femme de chambre of the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and a gentleman in a glazed cap, with a red beard like a bosom friend, who is staying at the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'Or is here; and Monsieur le Curé is walking up and down in a corner of the yard by himself, with a shovel hat upon his head, and a black gown on his back, and a book in one hand, and an umbrella in the other; and everybody, except Monsieur le Curé, is open-mouthed and open-eyed, for the opening of the carriage-door. The landlord of the Hôtel de l'Ecu d'Or, dotes to that

title: Page:Pictures From Italy.djvu/23


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/340

302 that I lean to the suspicion that Nāga ideas as to the conception and procreation of children might not be found to be altogether in accord with modern gynæcology.

Age and physical and social maturity mark important stages of social cleavage. McCulloch noted that children up to eleven or twelve years of age and old people in Manipur are exempt from Hindu laws of dietary, and throughout this area the stages of society are reckoned by age, and physical and social maturity are marked by external and characteristic distinctions of coiffure, costume, and ornament.

Up to puberty the children are marked by having their hair closely cut all over, except for a tuft at the point of the skull. At puberty boys and girls alike let their hair grow, and it is often said that it is disgraceful for a girl to have a baby of her own before she has got long hair. Among the Tangkhuls, in those villages in the north where the women are still tattooed, this is done at puberty. The girls generally go to another village, if possible one in which they have a maternal uncle. They are kept under strict tabus, and the operation is so painful that it is often done in instalments. The object of the practice of tattooing the women was given to me as the desire to identify their wives in the afterworld. It is therefore a pre-nuptial or quasi-initiatory rite. If women do not go to heaven, the practice would fail to achieve its object. This inconsistency may be more apparent than real. Perhaps there is a side door to heaven,—"For ladies only." Since the men of the northern Tangkhul villages were renowned for their prowess, it was observed that their daughters were eagerly sought in marriage, as any harm to them was immediately and fiercely avenged. I was once touring among the Southern Tangkhuls, and met some lads wearing their hair combed down in front in the way of


text:
Page:Pictures From Italy.djvu/24

12 extent upon the Courier, that he can hardly wait for his coming down from the box, but embraces his very legs and boot-heels as he descends. “My Courier! My brave Courier! My friend! My brother!” The landlady loves him, the femme de chambre blesses him, the garçon worships him. The Courier asks if his letter has been received? It has, it has. Are the rooms prepared? They are, they are. The best rooms for my noble Courier. The rooms of state for my gallant Courier; the whole house is at the service of my best of friends! He keeps his hand upon the carriage-door, and asks some other question to enhance the expectation. He carries a green leathern purse outside his coat, suspended by a belt. The idlers look at it; one touches it. It is full of five-franc pieces. Murmurs of admiration are heard among the boys. The landlord falls upon the Courier's neck, and folds him to his breast. He is so much fatter than he was, he says! He looks so rosy and so well!

The door is opened. Breathless expectation. The lady of the family gets out. Ah sweet lady! Beautiful lady! The sister of the lady of the family gets out. Great Heaven, Ma'amselle is charming! First little boy gets out. Ah, what a beautiful little boy! First little girl gets out. Oh, but this is an enchanting child! Second little girl gets out. The landlady, yielding to the finest impulse of our common nature, catches her up in her arms! Second little boy gets out. Oh, the sweet boy! Oh, the tender little family! The baby is handed out. Angelic baby! The baby has topped

title: Page:Pictures From Italy.djvu/24


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/341

Rh the unmarried girls in Manipur. Some of them had black spots on the sides and tip of the nose, and I learnt that these lads had reached the age for marriage and thus advertised the fact. Among Nāgas the custom of head-hunting is associated with and regarded as proof of physical maturity, and therefore as evidence of social maturity and fitness for marriage, which is paralleled by an interesting survival in Manipur. The eldest son of the Raja is required, on attaining the age of twelve years, to take the silver-hilted dao which the king of Pong, the Shan kingdom, presented to King Khāgenba, and to go into the jungle and there to cut twelve bundles of firewood, and bring them home as proof of his courage and strength. Among the Tangkhuls we have, if the house tax has not by now entirely obliterated it, a custom by which, on marriage, a man succeeded to his father's office, if his father happened to be a village office holder, and also occupied his father's house, turning out the old people, who seem to have been allowed to return after a short while and then to live in an inferior portion of the house. The effect, if not the purpose, of this custom, in so far as it relates to village offices, is to secure continuously for the office a man in the plenitude of his strength, physical and mental. No one who is physically deformed or of weak intellect is allowed to hold office. The Tangkhul Nāgas also assume the ring at puberty, and in some Kabul villages there is a village genna or communal rite for the unmarried boys and girls. Dr. Webster asserts that the presence in a primitive community of the men's house in any one of its numerous forms points strongly to the existence, now or in the past, of secret initiation ceremonies. I cannot say that I have definite knowledge of any puberty or secret initiation rites performed in the Bachelors' Hall. I think it reasonable to regard the facts I have cited as


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/342

 304 evidence of an organised appreciation of the importance of this stage in the growth of the individual tribesman, so that social and physical maturity are here not far apart.

A distinction is made in Nāga ethics between the married and the unmarried, as if they regarded marriage as not only in its social aspect a mark of full tribesmanship, but from another and more intimate point of view as in itself a liberal education. Theft, we learn, is more severely punished when the offender is a married man than when he is a callow youth. The subtleties of the lav/ are thus not unknown in the rarefied atmosphere of these hills. In mortuary ritual, too, a marked difference is made between the married and the unmarried, and their respective duties are strictly defined. The relations of the sexes before marriage are lax in the extreme, while after marriage the strictest chastity and connubial virtue are exacted. Davis, a most competent observer, declares that the prenuptial "lover would, as a rule, belong to the girl's own khel and would be a man whom it would be impossible for her to marry in any case." For the moment I only wish to emphasise the fact that a change in status is effected by marriage and brings with it an absolute and unconditional liability to the fundamental laws of this form of society. No village would tolerate in its midst a couple who sought to live together as a married couple when they were forbidden to do so by the law of exogamy. Indeed I have often asked directly what would happen if a couple did thus break the law and live together. I was assured that such a thing was impossible, that, if it did happen, they would be driven from the village and be outlawed, outcast, at the mercy of anyone who might choose to kill them, and that, were such marriages permitted, some dire mysterious misfortune would surely happen to the village. If a young


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/343

 Rh couple do not regularly complete the marriage ceremony, and omit that important part the payment of the price, they are not allowed to eat or drink in the house of the girl's parents till the price is paid to the last farthing. Here, at least, there is no natural repulsion between those who have been brought up in close intercourse. Marriage is the fact which for ever after keeps them apart.

All their gennas or communal rites are accompanied by special food tabus, followed by communal feasts at which men and women eat and cook apart. The little society is thus temporarily resolved into its primal elements, which are reaggregated at the end of the ceremony, when their normal commensality is resumed. Nervous exaltation is conspicuous on these occasions. I have often wondered whether savages such as these are more sensitive than civilised men to nervous crises and physical changes. They brood on them, and by anticipation enhance their intensity. They augment their sensibility by sudden alternations of fasting and feasting. These festivals (gennas, as, after Davis, they are specially termed in Assam), are characterised by temporary food tabus, by temporary disturbances of the normal social relations, commensal and conjugal. They are the means by which all events possessing social importance are celebrated. I shall have to recur presently to this aspect of their life, but now seek to draw your attention to the permanent food tabus which mark the lines of social structure. In emphasis of the sexual solidarity of these communities, we find that, among the Tangkhul Nāgas, women and girls are not allowed to eat dog. In other villages pork is forbidden to them and allowed to the men. As a general rule, the food regulations are relaxed for young children and for the aged. Unmarried but marriageable girls are not


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/344

 allowed to eat the flesh of any male animal. Women with child may not eat the flesh of any animal that has died with young. To them is forbidden the flesh of any animal that has died a natural death as we classify natural deaths, and, by a rather interesting amplification of the category of natural deaths, of any animal that has been killed by a tiger. Here and there I have found evidence of permanent food tabus affecting single clans, and therefore separating them from other clans in the same village. There are whole groups of villages which are subject to a common food tabu, which serves, therefore, as a rough test of tribesmanship. The Tangkhuls do not eat or keep goats. The Marām villagers do not eat pork, and have imposed this tabu on villages which they have conquered. They tell a tale about it which, though doubtless aetiological, seems to indicate a connection between food tabus and the law of marriage. Another important element in the structure of society is sharply and permanently demarcated by food tabus. To the priest-chief, whose sanctity is of a high and special order, necessitating many protective measures, are denied many articles of food otherwise allowed to his fellow villagers. His wife is equally subject to these food tabus, so that she bears a double burden, that of her sex and that of intimacy with so distinguished a lord and master. The first fruits of the cultivation are forbidden to the village until the priest-chief has put his hand to the harvest, thus rendering it available for all.

Even the food tabus which for a moment I classified as temporary may be categorised legitimately as permanent, because they are imposed not by individual choice or caprice, but of necessity, whenever events occur which are held to demand such measures. They are relaxed when the crisis is overpast, and are therefore as much part and parcel of the laws of society as are the permanent tabus. No doubt many of them "depend," as Tylor observed,


text:
Page:Earle, Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty, 1920, 133.jpg

Rh, instead of losing sight of the truth by an attempt to re-establish the impossible mercantile system.

And again it must be recalled that of the many considerations involved, the present value of our currency approximates only thirty-five per cent. of its former value. Therefore, a dealer, to obtain for himself an "exchangeable value" that will enable him "to replace his commodities" or obtain other commodities in equal quantity must, without regard to all the other complications and difficulties, receive above three hundred per cent. of his former prices. For the Act to punish him for doing so, is to penalize him for trying to safeguard against the ruin of his business.

Something should be said of the opinion of Judge Hazel in the Weed case, for it may well be used as a basis for summarizing the conclusions already stated. Although he says: "Candor compels the admission that the objection of uncertainty is not altogether free from doubt," he, like the other Judges of the lower Courts, makes no examination at all as to the real meaning of the Act, or as to the serious Constitutional questions that are raised by interpreting it to mean that all the prior doctrines of our common and statute law are swept away by his assumed interpretation. He supports his decision that the Act is constitutional upon the basis of legal principles which abrogate the Constitution itself, and so far as commodities are concerned, upon principles which will establish Communism in this country. It is submitted that if his contentions be correct, Mr. Justice Brewer's classical opinion in the Monongahela Case, so constantly followed and


text:
Author:Henry Phelps Johnston

Articles

 * (Land Operations)

Books

 * Nathan Hale (1901)

title: Author:Henry Phelps Johnston


text:
Page:Alumni Oxoniensis (1715-1886) volume 3.djvu/86

 Lord, Rev. John Frederick, 1s. John Pickup, of Cheltenham, arm. , matric. 24 Jan., 1879, aged 18; student of music 1879, B.A. & M.A. 1887. See Eton School Lists.  Lord, John Goodsir, 1s. Richard, of Crewe, Cheshire, D.Med. , matric. 22 Oct., 1885, aged 16.  Lord, John Pickup, 1s. John, of Wigan, Lancashire, arm. , matric. 10 June, 1840, aged 19; an officer 5th Lancashire militia, father of John Fredk.  Lord, Laurence, s. Laurence, of Cotsford, Oxon, arm. , matric. 13 March, 1721-2, aged 17, brother of John 1732, and of the next named.  Lord, Robert, s. Laurence, of Cotsford, Oxon, arm. , matric. 9 Feb., 1726-7, aged 16; B.A. 21 Jan., 1730-1, sometime minister of a society of Protestant Dissenters at Knutsford, in Cheshire, died at Lenton, near Nottingham, 15 Dec, 1801. See Gent's Mag., 1801, ii. 1157.  [5]

Lord, Samuel Curlewis, s. Walter, of Tooting, Surrey, arm. , matric. 1 Dec., 1812, aged 19; B.A. 1816, M.A. 1820, B.D. 1827, D.D. 1830, vicar of West Barsham, Norfolk, 1818, rector of Farmborough, near Bath, 1853, until his death 21 March, 1867.  Lord, Septimus, 6s. Henry, of Northiam, Sussex, doctor. , matric. 30 Oct., 1834, aged 18.  Lord, William, s. John, of Drayton Parslow, Bucks, cler. , matric. 1 Dec., 1762, aged 19; demy 1764-74, B.A. 1766, M.A. 1769, fellow 1774-1804, B.D. 1778, D.D. 1782, bursar, vice-president 1789, dean of divinity 1790, rector of Drayton Parslow, Bucks, and of Beaconsfield 1803, until his death 1 Nov., 1817. See Bloxam, vi. 341.

Lord, William Allwood, s. William, of Wingfield, co. Derby, gent. , matric. 17 Dec., 1796, aged 17; B.A. 1800.

Lorimer, Charles, 3s. James, of Toorak, near Melbourne, arm. , matric. 19 Oct., 1882, aged 20; B.A. 1887, a student of the Inner Temple 1884.
 [10]

Lorimer, James, 2s. James, of Victoria, Australia, gent. , matric. 14 Oct., 1882, aged 22.

Loring, Arthur Mapletoft, 1s. Hector, of Isle of Malta, arm. , matric. 28 May, 1863, aged 20; B.A. 1866, M.A. 1870, vicar of Barnstaple (Holy Trinity) 1872, until his death 6 Sep., 1874.

Loring, Henry Lloyd, s. Joshua, of Englefield, Berks, gent. , matric. 27 July, 1802, aged 18; demy 1802-7, B.A. 1806, fellow 1807-16, M.A. 1809, D.D. (by decree) 17 June, 1818, arch-deacon of Calcutta 1814, died 4 Sep., 1822. See ''Coll. Reg.'', vii. 149.

Loring, Henry Nele, 1s. John Wentworth, of Fareham, Hants, arm. , matric. 20 May, 1829, aged 17; B.A. 1833, M.A. 1837, held various curacies 1835-59, vicar of Boarhunt with Southwick, Hants, 1860-75.

Lort, Michael, fellow of, Cambridge, until 1780 (B.A. 1746, M.A. 1750, B.D. 1761, D.D. 1780); incorp. 7 July, 1759, regius professor of Greek 1759-71, preb. of St. Paul's 1780, F.R.S., F.S.A., died 5 Nov., 1790. See Gent's Mag.
 [15]

Lory, Frederick Aylmer Pendarves, 4s. William, of Meglor, near Falmouth, Cornwall, arm. , matric. 16 April, 1858, aged 18; B.A. 1861, held various curacies 1863-75, vicar of Bagshot since 1875.

Lory, Jacob Withers Gordon, 1s. William, of St. Reverne, Cornwall, gent.,, matric. 9 May, 1844, aged 19.

Loscombe, Clifton Wintringham, s. Benjamin, of Bristol (city), arm. , matric. 18 Nov., 1803, aged 19.

Losh, William, s. William, of St Mary's, Carlisle, Cumberland, pleb. , matric. 11 Oct., 1724, aged 16; B.A. 1730.

L'Oste, Charles, s. Charles, of Lowth, co. Lincoln, cler. , matric. 17 Dec., 1740, aged 19; B.A. 1744, M.A. 1747.
 [20]

Loton, John, 1s. Nathan, of Uttoxeter, co. Stafford, gent. , matric. 16 Jan., 1875, aged 29; B.A. from, 1879.

Loton, John Lewis, s. John, of Lewisham, Kent. gent. , matric. 10 July, 1742, aged 18.

Lott, Frederick Barnes, 1s. Frederick Edwin, of Leafield, Oxon, cler. , matric. 23 May, 1872, aged 18; a junior student 1872-9, B.A. 1876, M.A. 1880.

Lott, Frederick Edwin, 3s. Henry, of Tracey House, Devon, arm. , matric. 30 March, 1833, aged 20; B.A. from, 1841, M.A. 1844, a student of Inner Temple 1835, perp. curate Leafield and Ascott, Oxon, 1840, vicar of Bampton Lew, Oxon, 1857, until his death 12 Feb., 1860.

Lott, Harry Buckland, 1s. Harry, of Tracey Awlescomb, Devon, arm. , matric. 1 Dec., 1825, aged 18; B.A. 1829, a student of Inner Temple 1820.
 [25]

Lott, John Browning, 1s. Charles, of Faversham, Kent, gent. , matric. 19 Oct., 1874, aged 21; B.Mus. 26 Oct., 1876.

Lott, Rev. Reginald Charles, 3s. Frederick Edwin, of Seafield, Oxon, cler. , matric. 17 Oct., 1876, aged 19; exhibitioner 1876-80, B.A. 1880, M.A. 1884.

Lott, William Buckland, 4s. Harry Baines, of Awlescombe, Devon, arm. , matric. 16 May, 1839, aged 19; B.A. 1843, M.A. 1850, rector of Wymondham, co. Leicester, 1861-3, and of Barton Mills, Suffolk, since 1863.

Lough, Rev. Edward Inglis, 1s. John Francis Burnaby Lumley, of St. George's, Isle of Bermuda, cler. , matric. 16 Oct., 1880, aged 19; B.A. 1884. M.A. 1887.

Lough, John, s. John, of Milton, Kent, cler. , matric. 25 April, 1809, aged 18; B.A. 1813 (? garrison-chaplain Bermuda, died in 1839).
 [30]

Loughborough, Arthur, 1s. Thomas, of Lambeth, Surrey, arm. , matric. 1 July, 1861, aged 18; scholar 1861-4, B.A. 1864, bar.-at-law, Lincoln's Inn, 1867. See Foster's Men at the Bar & Robinson, 324.

Loughnan, Alfred Stack, 6s. Timothy, of Walcot, Bath, cler. , matric. 1 Feb., 1877, aged 19; scholar 1877-80, B.A. 1880.

Louis, Ferdinand, 'Linguæ Gallicæ Præceptor;' privilegiatus 29 July, 1765.

Lousada, Austin Percy, 1s. Percy, of Clifton, co. Gloucester, cler. , matric. 7 Feb., 1870, aged 20; B.A. 1873, bar.-at-law, Inner Temple, 1879. See Foster's Men at the Bar.

Lousada, Francis Baruh, 2s. Isaac Baruh, of Stamford, Middlesex, arm. , matric. 11 April, 1832, aged 18.
 [35]

Lousada, Isaac Baruh, 1s. (Isaac) Baruh, of St. George's, Bloomsbury, Middlesex, arm. , matric. 9 June, 1831, aged 22.

Lousada, Rev. Percy Martindale, o.s. David, of St. George's, Bloomsbury, Middlesex, arm. , matric. 12 June, 1841, aged 18; a student of Inner Temple 1844, died 7 Sep., 1859, aged 36.

Lovat, John, s. Thomas, of Newcastle, co. Stafford, pleb. , matric. 26 March, 1743, aged 18; B.A. 1746.

Lovatt, Dale, s. Joseph, of Penkhull, co. Stafford, gent. , matric. 4 Nov., 1738, aged 17; B.A. 1742.

Lovatt, Richard, s. Joseph, of Stoke, co. Stafford, gent. , matric. 20 March, 1724-5, aged 17.
 [40] [ 873 ]


text:
Page:Alumni Oxoniensis (1715-1886) volume 3.djvu/47

 CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL. From a Photograph by Hills & Saunders. [ 840 ]


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/345

Rh "on the belief that the qualities of the eaten pass into the eater," but they have been incorporated into the fabric of society, and have therefore and thereby acquired a special significance. Salomon Reinach invites us to accept tabu as the basis of religion, "un ensemble," as he calls it, "de scrupules qui font obstacle au libre exercice de nos facultés." He goes further, and asserts that "la sanction prévue, en cas de violation du tabou, n'est pas une pénalite édictée par la loi civile, mais une calamité, telle que la mort ou la cécité qui frappe le coupable." The criticism which I have to offer on this passage, and especially on the concluding portion of it, is that the penalty attaching to a breach of these social laws is in this area distinctly and unmistakably social, not individual. If the priest-chief eats food which is forbidden, the village may suffer a plague of boils, or of blindness. If a warrior eats food cooked by a woman before a raid, the whole enterprise will go wrong and all his companions be exposed to danger. If parents taste oil or pulse while the hair-cutting genna is in progress, the child will suffer. Just in this way the sin of Achan, who took the accursed thing, brought defeat and misfortune on the people of Israel. The strength of the genna system among the Nāgas lies, therefore, in the indirectness and uncertainty of its sanctions. A violation of a tabu on hunting during the cultivating season would,—specifically,—bring about a shortage of rice, but any subsequent misfortune would be attributed to it. If all may suffer for the default of one, it becomes the business of each to see that his neighbour keeps the law. If not the germ of altruism, is not this conducive to altruism? I have exploited this social solidarity in a severely practical manner when dealing as a judicial officer with village and other disputes. But rarely was the penalty, death or such other misfortune as an active imagination might suggest, invoked in their


text:
Page:Alumni Oxoniensis (1715-1886) volume 3.djvu/46

 Leir, Thomas, s. Thomas, of Charlton Musgrove, Somerset, cler. , matric. 18 March, 1784, aged 18; B.A. 1787, of Jaggards House, Wilts, and of Weston, near Bath, J.P., died 7 May, 1836.  Leir, Thomas Macie, s. Thomas, of Lyme Regis, Dorset, arm. , matric. 15 Dec., 1814, aged 19; of Jaggards House, Wilts, died 26 Nov., 1864.  Leir, William, s. Thomas, of Ditcheat, Somerset, cler. , matric. 21 Oct., 1757, aged 17; B.A. 1761, brother of Thomas, 1756, and of Paul M., 1772.  Leir, William, s. Thomas, of Charlton Musgrove, Somerset, cler. , matric. 13 June, 1787. aged 18; B.A. 1791, M.A. 1808, rector (and patron) of Ditcheat, Somerset, 1812, until his death 23 Dec., 1863.  Leir, William Marriott, 1s. William, of Ansford, Somerset, cler. , matric. 9 Dec., 1823, aged 18; B.A. 1828, M.A. 1835, rector of West Bagborough 1855-61, rector (and patron) of Ditcheat since 1861. See Foster's Our Noble and Gentle Families.  [5] Leith, John, s. William, of Tolquhoun Tarves, Aberdeen, Scotland, gent. , matric. 26 June, 1729, aged 17; B.A. 9 March, 1733-4.  Leith, Lockhart, s. George, of Deal, Kent, arm. , matric. 9 Nov., 1778, aged 19; B.A. 1782.  Leith, William Forbes, 2s. James John, of Whitelough, co. Aberdeen, arm. , matric. 9 Nov., 1854, aged 21; B.A. 1859, M.A. 1861, vicar of Wattisham, Suffolk, 1868.

Lely, John Mountney, 2s. John Lely Ostler, of Grantham, co. Lincoln, arm. , matric. 25 July, 1857. aged 17; demy 1857-63, B.A. 1862, M.A. 1864, assumed the surname of in lieu of  May, 1862, bar.-at-law, Inner Temple, 1869. See Foster's Men at the Bar & ''Coll. Reg.'', vii. 413.

Lely, Tracy, s. Peter, of Lincoln (city), gent. , matric. 2 Dec., 1748, aged 18; demy 1750-6, B.A. 1753, M.A. 1755, fellow 1756-62. See Bloxam, vi. 289.
 [10]
Leman, Charles Orgill, 3s. Naunton Thomas, of Brampton, Suffolk, cler. , matric. 27 Oct., 1819, aged 18; died 25 Jan., 1845.

Leman, George Orgill, s. Naunton Thomas Orgill, of Beccles, Suffolk, cler. , matric. 4 Nov., 1807, aged 18; scholar 1812-16, B.A. 1811, M.A. 1814, of Brampton Hall, Suffolk, incumbent of Stoven, 1823, his father assumed the additional surname of in 1808, died 14 Dec., 1867.

Leman, James, s. James, of Clutton, Somerset, gent. , matric. 28 Oct., 1782, aged 16.

Leman, Robert Orgill, s. Naunton Orgill, of Brampton, Suffolk, cler. , matric. 2 Feb., 1818, aged 18; B.A. 1822, of Brampton Hall, Suffolk, died 24 Feb.. 1869.

Leman, Thomas Orgill, 5s. Naunton Thomas, of Brampton, Suffolk, cler. , matric. 10 May, 1822, aged 18; B.A. 1826, M.A. 1849, rector of Brampton, Suffolk, 1837, until his death 7 June, 1873.
 [15]
Lemarchand, Frederick Payne, 1s. Francis Wharton, of Ceylon, gent. , matric. 12 Nov., 1880, aged 18; B.A. 1886.

Lemon, Arthur Henry, 3s. William George, of Blackheath, Kent, arm. , matric. 18 Oct., 1883, aged 19; scholar 1883, B.A. 1887.

Lemon, Charles, s. Samuel, of Germo, Cornwall, gent. , matric. 10 April, 1771, aged 18; B.A. 1775.

Lemon, (Sir) Charles (Bart.), s. William, of Carclew, par. Milor, Cornwall, baronet. , matric. 21 Oct., 1803, aged 19; and baronet, hon. M.A. Cambridge 1833, deputy warden of the Stannaries 1852, M.P. Penrhyn 1807-12, 1830-1, Cornwall 1831-2, West Cornwall 1832-57, died 12 Feb.. 1868.

Lemon, James Frederick, 1s. James, of Rigarden House, near Helstone, Cornwall, arm. , matric. 18 Oct., 1875, aged 18; B.A. 1879, M.A. 1882, vicar of Marazion, Cornwall, since 1883.
 [20]
Lemon, Thomas William, o.s. Thomas, of Taunton, Somerset, arm,, matric. 14 June, 1865, aged 19; B.A. 1869, M.A. 1872, vicar of Buckerell, Devon, 1878-84.

Lemon, William, s. William, of Penzance, Cornwall, arm. , matric. 17 Nov., 1741, aged 16; of Carclew, Cornwall, father of the next named.

Lemon, (Sir) William (Bart.), s. William, of Truro, Cornwall, arm. , matric. 11 Jan., 1765, aged 16; of Carclew, Cornwall, created a baronet 3 May, 1774, M.P. Penrhyn Jan., 1770-4, Cornwall, in 11 parliaments, 1774, until his death 18 Dec., 1824.

Lemon, William, s. William, of London, baronet. , matric. 7 May, 1791, aged 17; died March, 1799.

Lempriere, Algernon Thomas, 2s. George Ourry, of Southampton, Hants, arm. , matric. 3 June, 1854, aged 18; B.A. 1858, M.A. 1861, bar.-at-law, Inner Temple, 1863. See Foster's Men at the Bar & Eton School Lists.
 [25]
Lempriere, Charles, s. John, of Grouville, Isle of Jersey, cler. , matric. 29 Oct., 1725, aged 17; B.A. 6 Feb., 1729-30.

Lempriere, Charles, s. Charles, Isle of Jersey, arm. , matric. 26 Oct., 1759, aged 18; commissary-general Jersey and Guernsey, brother of William Charles.

Lempriere, Charles, 3s. John, of St David's, Exeter, doctor. , matric. 26 June 1837, aged 18; scholar 1837, B.C.L. 1842, D.C.L. 1847, dean of laws 1875, bar.-at-law, Inner Temple, 1844, colonial secretary for the Bahamas. See Foster's Men at the Bar & Robinson, 223.

Lempriere, Daniel Matthew, 5s. John, of St. Heller's, Isle of Jersey, gent. , matric. 27 Oct., 1842, aged 18; B.A. 1847, M.A. 1862, chaplain Jersey hospital and prison 1854-84, rector of St Clement's, Jersey, 1876.

Lempriere, Everard Philip, as. Henry, of Woolwich, Kent, arm. , matric. 23 April, 1870, aged 19; B.A. 1874.
 [30]
Lempriere, George, s. James, of St Heller's, Isle of Jersey, gent. , matric. 4 April, 1720, aged 19; B.A. 24 March, 1733-4, M.A. 1729.

Lempriere, George, a James, of St Helier's, Isle of Jersey, arm. , matric. 10 Dec., 1760, aged 14.

Lempriere, John, s. Charles, of Isle of Jersey, gent. , matric. 17 Jan., 1786, aged 20; B.A. 1790, M.A. 1792, B.D. 1801, D.D. 1803, a master Bolton Free Grammar School 1790, head-master Abingdon Grammar School 1782. and of Exeter Free Grammar School, vicar of Abingdon 1800, rector of Meeth 1811, and of Newton St. Petrock, Devon, 1823, until his death 1 Feb., 1824, author of 'Bibliotheca Classics,' etc.

Lempriere, Philip, s. Charles, of Isle of Jersey, arm. , matric. 27 Jan., 1803, aged 18.

Lempriere, Reginald Raoul, 1s. William, of Ipswich, Suffolk, cler. , matric. 3 June, 1870, aged 18; commoner 1873, B.A. from  1875, M.A. 1878, bar.-at-law, Inner Temple, 1875, and advocate Royal Court of Jersey. See Foster's Men at the Bar.

Lempriere, William, 2s. Philip Raoul, of Isle of Jersey, arm. , matric. 22 Oct., 1835, aged 17, B.A. 1839, M.A. 1843; fellow 1843-4, chaplain of Rozel Manor, Jersey, since 1869. See Boase, 135; & Rugby School Reg., 172.
 [36] [ 839 ]


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/346

308 oaths upon a single person. The members of his family in ordinary matters, of his clan in more serious cases, and in extreme matters of the whole village, were rendered liable to the penalty invoked in the imprecation which forms so important and characteristic a part of the Nāga oath. I did but follow their own custom, often at their own suggestion.

I find that we may estimate the importance of any event that takes place in the midst of Nāga communities in terms of genna. First, I consider the social unit affected by the genna appropriate to the particular occasion, and then I reckon the duration and intensity of the genna in question. My method may not be strictly scientific, but it does at least employ a standard measure of the country. By this method we must place birth gennas rather low in the scale. It costs less to be born than to be buried all the world over. We can carry our classification of birth gennas to some degree of accuracy, for it is usual to hold a genna on the birth of the young of any domestic animal in the house. The scale has been worked out elaborately in one village, Mayong-khong, where I learnt that chickens got one day, kittens and puppies two days, pigs three days, and calves five days. Only the eldest child gets as much as a calf, while the second and other children only rank with the pigs. Elsewhere the scale is kinder to man, for at Maikel the eldest child gets a genna for a month, and the second one for fifteen days, while a calf gets five days, and puppies and pigs only have one day. It is often usual to vary the genna according to the sex of the child, allowing a day longer to a boy than to a girl. Only the parents are affected by the birth genna, a fact of some importance as proving that the community as a whole does not recognise any direct interest in the event. What is also of interest is that, as among the Tangkhuls, the father is genna for a longer time than the mother, and that the gennas are stricter in his case than for his wife. He may not work, and the solace of a pipe. is


text:
Page:Earle, Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty, 1920, 134.jpg

134 maintained heretofore, has ceased to have any purpose or effect, and that many other Supreme Court decisions are likewise overruled. And this is particularly true from Judge Hazel's conclusion that if any things can properly be defined as "necessaries," in which of course the public has an interest, "the Lever Act does not deprive any one of his property without due process of law, it merely limiting the rate of charge for dealing in or with any necessaries." "For the foregoing reasons," he says, "I am of the opinion that this Court ought not to declare unconstitutional the provision to which exception is taken by the defendant." In other words, the decision in the case, if it be correctly understood, would lead to the conclusion that the Judges have been continually in error, at least from the time of Lord Chief Justice Coke, who it will be remembered said, "for what is the land but the profits thereof," to the case of Cleveland vs. Backus


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/347

Rh denied to him. This genna seems to be more severe in those villages where the husband acts as the midwife. Among the Tangkhuls, too, the father gives the child its first food. He chews a few grains of rice, and then puts them in the child's mouth. Is this a sort of acknowledgment of paternity? Is it the assertion of a claim? Is it,—intentionally,—designed to create a bond between father and child? I myself regard it as in part explained by the fact that "C'est le premier pas qui coûte." Just as the Gennabura sets free the new crop of rice by tasting it himself, so the father, who is the sacrificing authority inside the house, sets the child free to eat the staple of his adult life. It is a rite of aggregation and une levée de tabou. In cases where the marriage rites have not been duly completed before a child is born, provided the couple might otherwise marry, the father is often required to acknowledge formally the paternity of the child, which is then allowed to live. Were he to deny paternity, or if the couple might not marry, the child would not be reared. Marriage has therefore the effect of "legitimising" the children. Is pater quem nuptiae demonstrant.

At Maolong, a Quoireng Nāga village, where the birth genna for a calf lasts for a month, the same period as for a child, I was told that the fowl killed by the father when the child was born was eaten by the mother, and that the father was not allowed to taste it. In the same village I learnt that no one was allowed to eat the flesh of a dog or goat that has been sacrificed for them. In other villages the diet of the proud parents during the birth genna is fish and salt. Yet again in others fish and fowls only are allowed. The Kukis are not so strict about the rule enjoining the parents to have no contact with the rest of the village, for they allow drinks to be given by them to all, except the unmarried. Nearly all sacrifices are in part used as occasions for taking omens, and the fowl killed at


text:
Page:The Eurypterida of New York Volume 1.pdf/91

Megalograptus welchi Miller. Liberty beds, Warren county, Ohio

Eurypterus prominens Hall & Clarke. Clinton sandstone, Cayuga county, N. Y.

E. sp. Arisaig, Nova Scotia

Eurypterus ranilarva nov.

E. (Onychopterus) kokomoensis Miller & Gurley

Eusarcus newlini (Claypole)

Drepanopterus longicaudatus nov.

Eurypterus (Tylopterus) boylei Whiteaves. Elora, Ontario

Eurypterus pittsfordensis Sarle

Stylonurus (Ctenopterus) multispinosus nov.

Hughmilleria socialis Sarle

H. socialis var. robusta Sarle

Pterygotus monroensis Sarle

Eurypterus maria Clarke

Eusarcus? cicerops Clarke


text:
Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/348

310 the birth genna affords excellent omens. They watch the convulsive struggles of its feet in the death agony, and, if the left foot crosses over the right foot, the future is believed to be favourable for the child. I have been told that the sacrifice of the fowl was in worship of the inumg lai, the household deity, but I realise that by employing a Meithei term my Nāga informants may quite unconsciously have given their own custom a colour and meaning which it does not properly possess. Meithei is the lingua franca of this part of the hills, and in nearly every village there is some one who knows Meithei well enough to act as interpreter, for the multiplicity of dialects is so great as to make a first-hand knowledge of each dialect impossible. As we find that the food prohibitions at the time of ear-piercing and hair-cutting are intended to save the child from harm, or rather that a breach of these prohibitions brings harm to the child, not to the parents, it seems not unreasonable to attach the same or a similar significance to the food prohibitions imposed during the period of the birth genna, and to think that the sacrifice then made may be in part an act of worship, in part designed to afford an omen, in part to absorb and remove impurity, and in part protective Where, as here, a belief in evil spirits is common, women before, during, and after childbirth are peculiarly exposed to malignant influences, I have come across rites such as the worship of the River spirit and of the lairen (python) which are intended to procure an easy delivery. In some Kabui villages I was told that an unmarried lad,—not yet arrived at puberty,—accompanied women to the village spring after the birth genna was over, armed with a spear to protect his companion from evil spirits.

The birth gennas are entirely matters for the household, and, if I may continue to employ gennas as the standard of measure, I would infer that the household is thus recognised as a religious unit in the social structure, and that the child is thus made a member of the household only. The