evidently a fuller presentation of the first of Stanley Hall's
three cases. It is the history of a healthy, unmarried, chaste
man, who kept a record of his nocturnal emissions (and their
accompanying dreams) from the age of thirty to thirty-eight. In
what American State he lived is not mentioned. He was ignorant of
the existence of any previous records. The yearly average was 37
to 50, remaining fairly constant; the monthly average was 3.43. I
reproduce the total results summated for the months, separately,
and I have worked out the daily average for each month, for
convenience counting the summated eight years as one  year:--

Jan. Feb. Mar.  Apr. May  June  July  Aug.  Sept.  Oct.  Nov.  Dec.
27   27   27    31   29   28    36    25    18     27    30    24
.87  .94  .87  1.03  .93  .93  1.16   .81   .60    .87  1.00   .77

Here, as in all the other curves we have been able to consider,
we may see the usual two points of climax in spring and in
autumn; the major climax covers April, May, June, and July, the
minor autumnal climax is confined to November. In the light of
the evidence which has thus accumulated, we may conclude that the
existence of an annual ecbolic curve, with its spring and autumn
climaxes, as described in the first edition of this book, is now
definitely established.

If we are to believe, as these records tend to show, that the nocturnal
and involuntary voice of the sexual impulse usually speaks at least as
loudly in autumn as in spring, we are confronted by a certain divergence
of the sleeping sexual impulse from the waking sexual instinct, as
witnessed by the conception-curve, and also, it may be added, by the
general voice of tradition, and, indeed, of individual feeling, which
concur, on the whole, in placing the chief epoch of sexual activity in
spring and early summer, more especially as regards women.[159] It is not
impossible to reconcile the contradiction, assuming it to be real, but I
will refrain here from suggesting the various explanations which arise.
We need a broader basis of facts.

There are many facts to show that early spring and, to a certain extent,
autumn are periods of visible excitement, mainly sexual in character. We
have already seen that among the Eskimo menstruation and sexual desire
occur chiefly in spring, but cases are known of healthy women in temperate
climes who only menstruate twice a year, and in such cases the menstrual
epochs appear to be usually in spring and autumn. Such, at all events, was
the case in a girl of 20, whose history has been recorded by Dr. Mary
Wenck, of Philadelphia.[160] She menstruated first when 15 years old. Six
months later the flow again appeared for the second time, and lasted three
weeks, without cessation. Since then, for five years, she menstruated
during March and September only, each time for three weeks, the flow being
profuse, but not exhaustingly so, without pain or systemic disturbance.
Examination revealed perfectly normal uterus and ovarian organs.
Treatment, accompanied by sitz-baths during the time of month the flow
should appear, accomplished nothing. The semi-annual flow continued and
the girl seemed in excellent health.

It is a remarkable fact that, as noted by Dr. Hamilton Wey at Elmira,
sexual outbursts among prisoners appear to occur at about March and
October. "Beginning with the middle of February," writes Dr. Wey in a
private letter, "and continuing for about two months, is a season of
ascending sexual wave; also the latter half of September and the month of
October. We are now (March 30th) in the midst of a wave."

According to Chinese medicine, it is the spring which awakens
human passions. In early Greek tradition, spring and summer were
noted as the time of greatest wantonness. "In the season of
toilsome summer," says Hesiod (_Works and Days_, xi, 569-90),
"the goats are fattest, wine is best, women most wanton, and men
weakest." It was so, also, in the experience of the Romans. Pliny
(_Natural History_, Bk. XII, Ch. XLIII) states that when the
asparagus blooms and the cicada sings loudest, is the season when
women are most amorous, but men least inclined to pleasure.
Paulus Ægineta said that hysteria specially abounds during spring
and autumn in lascivious girls and sterile women, while more
recent observers have believed that hysteria is particularly
difficult to treat in autumn. Oribasius (_Synopsis_, lib. i, cap.
6) quotes from Rufus to the effect that sexual feeling is most
strong in spring, and least so in summer. Rabelais said that it
was in March that the sexual impulse is strongest, referring this
to the early warmth of spring, and that August is the month least
favorable to sexual activity (_Pantagruel_, liv. v, Ch. XXIX).
Nipho, in his book on love dedicated to Joan of Aragon, discussed
the reasons why "women are more lustful and amorous in summer,
and men in winter." Venette, in his _Génération de l'homme_,
harmonized somewhat conflicting statements with the observation
that spring is the season of love for both men and women; in
summer, women are more amorous than men; in autumn, men revive to
some extent, but are still oppressed by the heat, which,
sexually, has a less depressing effect on women. There is
probably a real element of truth in this view, and both extremes
of heat and cold may be regarded as unfavorable to masculine
virility. It is highly probable that the well-recognized tendency
of piles to become troublesome in spring and in autumn, is due to
increased sexual activity. Piles are favored by congestion, and
sexual excitement is the most powerful cause of sudden congestion
in the genito-anal region. Erasmus Darwin called attention to the
tendency of piles to recur about the equinoxes (_Zoönomia_,
Section XXXVI), and since his days Gant, Bonavia, and Cullimore
have correlated this periodicity with sexual activity.

Laycock, quoting the opinions of some earlier authorities as to
the prevalence of sexual feeling in spring, stated that that
popular opinion "appears to be founded on fact" (_Nervous
Diseases of Women_, p. 69). I find that many people, and perhaps
especially women, confirm from their own experience, the
statement that sexual feeling is strongest in spring and summer.
Wichmann states that pollutions are most common in spring (being
perhaps the first to make that statement), and also nymphomania.
(In the eighteenth century, Schurig recorded a case of extreme
and life-long sexual desire in a woman whose salacity was always
at its height towards the festival of St. John, _Gynæcologia_, p.
16.) A correspondent in the Argentine Republic writes to me that
"on big estancias, where we have a good many shepherds, nearly
always married, or, rather, I should say, living with some woman
(for our standard of morality is not very high in these parts),
we always look out for trouble in springtime, as it is a very
common thing at this season for wives to leave their husbands and
go and live with some other man." A corresponding tendency has
been noted even among children. Thus, Sanford Bell ("The Emotion
of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July,
1902) remarks: "The season of the year seems to have its effect
upon the intensity of the emotion of sex-love among children. One
teacher, from Texas, who furnished me with seventy-six cases,
said that he had noticed that in the matter of love children
seemed 'fairly to break out in the springtime.' Many of the
others who reported, incidentally mentioned the love affairs as
beginning in the spring. This also agrees with my own
observations."

Crichton-Browne remarks that children in springtime exhibit restlessness,
excitability, perversity, and indisposition to exertion that are not
displayed at other times. This condition, sometimes known as "spring
fever," has been studied in over a hundred cases, both children and
adults, by Kline. The majority of these report a feeling of tiredness,
languor, lassitude, sometimes restlessness, sometimes drowsiness. There is
often a feeling of suffocation, and a longing for Nature and fresh air and
day-dreams, while work seems distasteful and unsatisfactory. Change is
felt to be necessary at all costs, and sometimes there is a desire to
begin some new plan of life.[161] In both sexes there is frequently a wave
of sexual emotion, a longing for love. Kline also found by examination of
a very large number of cases that between the ages of four and seventeen
it is in spring that running away from home most often occurs. He suggests
that this whole group of phenomena may be due to the shifting of the
metabolic processes from the ordinary grooves into reproductive channels,
and seeks to bring it into connection with the migrations of animals for
reproductive purposes.[162]

It has long been known that the occurrence of insanity follows an annual
curve,[163] and though our knowledge of this curve, being founded on the
date of admissions to asylums, cannot be said to be quite precise, it
fairly corresponds to the outbreaks of acute insanity. The curve
presented in Chart 4 shows the admissions to the London County Council
Lunatic Asylums during the years 1893 to 1897 inclusive; I have arranged
it in two-month periods, to neutralize unimportant oscillations. In order
to show that this curve is not due to local or accidental circumstances,
we may turn to France and take a special and chronic form of mental
disease: Garnier, in his _Folie à Paris_, presents an almost exactly
similar curve of the admissions of cases of general paralysis to the
Infirmerie Spéciale at Paris during the years 1886-88 (Chart 5). Both
curves alike show a major climax in spring and a minor climax in autumn.

Crime in general in temperate climates tends to reach its maximum
at the beginning of the hot season, usually in June. Thus, in
Belgium, the minimum is in February; the maximum in June, thence
gradually diminishing (Lentz, _Bulletin Société Médecine Mentale
Belgique_, March, 1901). In France, Lacassagne has summated the
data extending over more than 40 years, and finds that for all
crimes June is the maximum month, the minimum being reached in
November. He also gives the figures for each class of crime
separately, and every crime is found to have its own yearly
curve. Poisonings show a chief maximum in May, with slow fall and
a minor climax in December; assassinations have a February and a
November climax. Parricides culminate in May-June, and in October
(Lacassagne's tables are given by Laurent, _Les Habitués des
Prisons de Paris_, Ch. 1).

Notwithstanding the general tendency for crime to reach its
maximum in the first hot month (a tendency not necessarily due to
the direct influence of heat), we also find, when we consider the
statistics of crime generally (including sexual crime), that
there is another tendency for minor climaxes in spring and
autumn. Thus, in Italy, Penta, taking the statistics of nearly
four thousand crimes (murder, highway robbery, and sexual
offences), found the maximum in the first summer months, but
there were also minor climaxes in spring and in August and
September (Penta, _Rivista Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899). In
nearly all Europe (as is shown by a diagram given by Lombroso and
Laschi, at the end of the first volume of _Le Crime Politique_),
while the chief climaxes occur about July, there is, in most
countries, a distinct tendency to spring (usually about March)
and autumn (September and November) climaxes, though they rarely
rise as high as the July climax.

If we consider the separate periodicity of sexual offences, we
find that they follow the rule for crimes generally, and usually
show a chief maximum in early summer. Aschaffenburg finds that
the annual periodicity of the sexual impulse appears more
strongly marked the more abnormal its manifestations, which he
places in the following order of increasing periodicity:
conceptions in marriage, conceptions out of marriage, offences
against decency, rape, assaults on children (_Centralblatt für
Nervenheilkunde_, January, 1903). In France, rapes and offences
against modesty are most numerous in May, June, and July, as
Villermé, Lacassagne, and others have shown. Villermé,
investigating 1,000 such cases, found a gradual ascent in
frequency (only slightly broken in March) to a maximum in June
(oscillating between May and July, when the years are considered
separately), and then a gradual descent to a minimum in December.
Legludic gives, for the 159 cases he had investigated, a table
showing a small February-March climax, and a large June-August
maximum, the minimum being reached in November-January.
(Legludic, _Attentats aux Moeurs_, 1896, p. 16.) In Germany,
Aschaffenburg finds that sexual offences begin to increase in
March and April, reach a maximum in June or July, and fall to a
minimum in winter (_Monatsschrift für Psychiatrie_, 1903, Heft
2). In Italy, Penta shows that sexual offences reach a minor
climax in May (corresponding, in his experience, with the maximum
for crimes generally, as well as with the maximum for
conceptions), and a more marked climax in August-September
(Penta, _I Pervertimenti Sessuali_, 1893, p. 115; id. _Rivista
Mensile di Psichiatria_, 1899).

Corre, in his _Crime en Pays Créole_, presents charts of the
seasonal distribution of crime in Guadeloupe, with relation to
temperature, which show that while, in a mild temperature like
that of France and England, crime attains its maximum in the hot
season, it is not so in a more tropical climate; in July, when in
Guadeloupe the heat attains its maximum degree, crime of all
kinds falls suddenly to a very low minimum. Even in the United
States, where the summer heat is often excessive, it tends to
produce a diminution of crime.

Dexter, in an elaborate study of the relationship of conduct to
the weather, shows that in the United States assaults present the
maximum of frequency in April and October, with a decrease during
the summer and the winter. "The unusual and interesting fact
demonstrated here with a certainty that cannot be doubted is," he
concludes, "that the unseasonably hot days of spring and autumn
are the pugnacious ones, even though the actual heat be much less
than for summer. We might infer from this that conditions of
heat, up to a certain extent, are vitalizing, while, at the same
time, irritating, but above that limit, heat is so devitalizing
in its effects as to leave hardly energy enough to carry on a
fight." (E.G. Dexter, _Conduct and the Weather_, 1899, pp. 63 _et
seq._)

It is not impossible that the phenomena of seasonal periodicity
in crimes may possess a real significance in relation to sexual
periodicity. If, as is possible, the occurrence of spring and
autumn climaxes of criminal activity is due less to any special
exciting causes at these seasons than to the depressing
influences of heat and cold in summer and winter, it may appear
reasonable to ask whether the spring and autumn climaxes of
sexual activity are not really also largely due to a like
depressing influence of extreme temperatures at the other two
seasons.

Not only is there periodicity in criminal conduct, but even within the
normal range of good and bad conduct seasonal periodicity may still be
traced. In his _Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals_, H.D. Wey
gives charts of the conduct of seven prisoners during several years, as
shown by the marks received. These charts show that there is a very
decided tendency to good behavior during summer and winter, while in
spring (February, March, and April) and in autumn (August, September and
October) there are very marked falls to bad conduct, each individual
tending to adhere to a conduct-curve of his own. Wey does not himself
appear to have noticed this seasonal periodicity. Marro, however, has
investigated this question in Turin on a large scale and reaches results
not very dissimilar from those shown by Wey's figures in New York. He
noted the months in which over 4,000 punishments were inflicted on
prisoners for assaults, insults, threatening language, etc., and shows the
annual curve in Tavola VI of his _Caratteri dei Delinquenti_. There is a
marked and isolated climax in May; a still more sudden rise leads to the
chief maximum of punishment in August; and from the minimum in October
there is rapid ascent during the two following months to a climax much
inferior to that of May.

The seasonal periodicity of bad conduct in prisons is of interest
as showing that we cannot account for psychic periodicity by
invoking exclusively social causes. This theory of psychic
periodicity has been seriously put forward, but has been
investigated and dismissed, so far as crime in Holland is
concerned, by J.R.B. de Roos, in the Transactions of the sixth
Congress of Criminal Anthropology, at Turin, in 1906 (_Archivio
di Psichiatria_ fasc. 3, 1906).

The general statistics of suicides in Continental Europe show a very
regular and unbroken curve, attaining a maximum in June and a minimum in
December, the curve rising steadily through the first six months, sinking
steadily through the last six months, but always reaching a somewhat
greater height in May than in July.[164] Morselli shows that in various
European countries there is always a rise in spring and in autumn (October
or November).[165] Morselli attributes these spring and autumn rises to
the influence of the strain of the early heat and the early cold.[166] In
England, also, if we take a very large number of statistics, for instance,
the figures for London during the twenty years between 1865 and 1884, as
given by Ogle (in a paper read before the Statistical Society in 1886), we
find that, although the general curve has the same maximum and minimum
points, it is interrupted by a break on each side of the maximum, and
these two breaks occur precisely at about March and October.[167] This is
shown in the curve in Chart 6, which presents the daily average for the
different months.

The growth of children follows an annual rhythm. Wahl, the director of an
educational establishment for homeless girls in Denmark, who investigated
this question, found that the increase of weight for all the ages
investigated was constantly about 33 per cent. greater in the summer
half-year than in the winter half-year. It was noteworthy that even the
children who had not reached school-age, and therefore could not be
influenced by school-life, showed a similar, though slighter, difference
in the same direction. It is, however, Malling-Hansen, the director of an
institution for deaf-mutes in Copenhagen, who has most thoroughly
investigated this matter over a great many years. He finds that there are
three periods of growth throughout the year, marked off in a fairly sharp
manner, and that during each of these periods the growth in weight and
height shows constant characteristics. From about the end of November up
to about the end of March is a period when growth, both in height and
weight, proceeds at a medium rate, reaching neither a maximum nor a
minimum; increase in weight is slight, the increase in height, although
trifling, preponderating. After this follows a period during which the
children show a marked increase in height, while increase in weight is
reduced to a minimum. The children constantly lose in weight during this
period of growth in height almost as much as they gain in the preceding
period. This period lasts from March and April to July and August. Then
follows the third period, which continues until November and December.
During this period increase in height is very slight, being at its early
minimum; increase in weight, on the other hand, at the beginning of the
period (in September and October), is rapid and to the middle of December
very considerable, daily increase in weight being three times as great as
during the winter months. Thus it may be said that the spring sexual
climax corresponds, roughly, with growth in height and arrest of growth in
weight, while the autumn climax corresponds roughly with a period of
growth in weight and arrest of growth in height. Malling-Hansen found that
slight variations in the growth of the children were often dependent on
changes in temperature, in such a way that a rise of temperature, even
lasting for only a few days, caused an increase of growth, and a fall of
temperature a decrease in growth. At Halle, Schmid-Monnard found that
nearly all growth in weight took place in the second half of the year, and
that the holidays made little difference. In America, Peckham has shown
that increase of growth is chiefly from the 1st of May to the 1st of
September.[168] Among young girls in St. Petersburg, Jenjko found that
increase in weight takes place in summer. Goepel found that increase in
height takes place mostly during the first eight months of the year,
reaching a maximum in August, declining during the autumn and winter, in
February being _nil_, while in March there is sometimes loss in weight
even in healthy children.

In the course of a study as to the consumption of bread in Normal schools
during each month of the year, as illustrating the relationship between
intellectual work and nutrition, Binet presents a number of curves which
bring out results to which he makes no allusion, as they are outside his
own investigation. Almost without exception, these curves show that there
is an increase in the consumption of bread in spring and in autumn, the
spring rise being in February, March, and April; the autumn rise in
October or November. There are, however, certain fallacies in dealing with
institutions like Normal schools, where the conditions are not perfectly
regular throughout the year, owing to vacations, etc. It is, therefore,
instructive to find that under the monotonous conditions of prison-life
precisely the same spring and autumn rises are found. Binet takes the
consumption of bread in the women's prison at Clermont, where some four
hundred prisoners, chiefly between the ages of thirty and forty, are
confined, and he presents two curves for the years 1895 and 1896. The
curves for these two years show certain marked disagreements with each
other, but both unite in presenting a distinct rise in April, preceded and
followed by a fall, and both present a still more marked autumn rise, in
one case in September and November, in the other case in October.[169]

Some years ago, Sir J. Crichton-Browne stated that a
manifestation of the sexual stimulus of spring is to be found in
the large number of novels read during the month of March
("Address in Psychology" at the annual meeting of the British
Medical Association, Leeds, 1889; _Lancet_, August 14, 1889).
The statement was supported by figures furnished by lending
libraries, and has since been widely copied. It would certainly
be interesting if we could so simply show the connection between
love and season, by proving that when the birds began to sing
their notes, the young person's fancy naturally turns to brood
over the pictures of mating in novels. I accordingly applied to
Mr. Capel Shaw, Chief Librarian of the Birmingham Free Libraries
(specially referred to by Sir J. Crichton-Browne), who furnished
me with the Reports for 1896 and 1897-98 (this latter report is
carried on to the end of March, 1898).

The readers who use the Birmingham Free Lending Libraries are
about 30,000 in number; they consist very largely of young people
between the ages of 14 and 25; somewhat less than half are women.
Certainly we seem to have here a good field for the determination
of this question. The monthly figures for each of the ten
Birmingham libraries are given separately, and it is clear at a
glance that without exception the maximum number of readers of
prose-fiction at all the libraries during 1897-98 is found in the
month of March. (I have chiefly taken into consideration the
figures for 1897-98; the figures for 1896 are somewhat abnormal
and irregular, probably owing to a decrease in readers,
attributed to increased activity in trade, and partly to a
disturbing influence caused by the opening of a large new library
in the course of the year, suddenly increasing the number of
readers, and drafting off borrowers from some of the other
libraries.) Not only so, but there is a second, or autumnal
climax, almost equaling the spring climax, and occuring with
equal certainty, appearing during 1897-98 either in October or
November, and during 1896, constantly in October. Thus, the
periodicity of the rate of consumption of prose-fiction
corresponds with the periodicity which is found to occur in the
conception rate and in sexual ecbolic manifestations.

It is necessary, however, to examine somewhat more closely the
tables presented in these reports, and to compare the rate of the
consumption of novels with that of other classes of literature.
In the first place, if, instead of merely considering the
consumption of novels per month, we make allowance for the
varying length of the months, and consider the average _daily_
consumption per month, the supremacy of March at once vanishes.
February is really the month during which most novels were read
during the first quarter of 1898, except at two libraries, where
February and March are equal. The result is similar if we
ascertain the daily averages for the first quarter in 1897,
while, in 1896 (which, however, as I have already remarked, is a
rather abnormal year), the daily average for March in many of the
libraries falls below that for January, as well as for February.
Again, when we turn to the other classes of books, we find that
this predominance which February possesses, and to some extent
shares with March and January, by no means exclusively applies to
novels. It is not only shared by both music and poetry,--which
would fit in well with the assumption of a sexual _nisus_,--but
the department of "history, biography, voyages, and travels"
shares it also with considerable regularity; so, also, does that
of "arts, sciences, and natural history," and it is quite well
marked in "theology, moral philosophy, etc.," and in "juvenile
literature." We even have to admit that the promptings of the
sexual instinct bring an increased body of visitors to the
reference library (where there are no novels), for here, also,
both the spring and autumnal climaxes are quite distinct.
Certainly this theory carries us a little too far.

The main factor in producing this very marked annual periodicity
seems to me to be wholly unconnected with the sexual impulse. The
winter half of the year (from the beginning of October to the end
of March), when outdoor life has lost its attractions, and much
time must be spent in the house, is naturally the season for
reading. But during the two central months of winter, December
and January, the attraction of reading meets with a powerful
counter-attraction in the excitement produced by the approach of
Christmas, and the increased activity of social life which
accompanies and for several weeks follows Christmas. In this way
the other four winter months--October and November at the
autumnal end, and February and March at the spring end--must
inevitably present the two chief reading climaxes of the year;
and so the reports of lending libraries present us with figures
which show a striking, but fallacious, resemblance to the curves
which are probably produced by more organic causes.

I am far from wishing to deny that the impulse which draws young
men and women to imaginative literature is unconnected with the
obscure promptings of the sexual instinct. But, until the
disturbing influence I have just pointed out is eliminated, I see
no evidence here for any true seasonal periodicity. Possibly in
prisons--the value of which, as laboratories of experimental
psychology we have scarcely yet begun to realize--more reliable
evidence might be obtained; and those French and other prisons
where novels are freely allowed to the prisoners might yield
evidence as regards the consumption of fiction as instructive as
that yielded at Clermont concerning the consumption of bread.

Certain diseases show a very regular annual curve. This is notably the
case with scarlet fever. Caiger found in a London fever hospital a marked
seasonal prevalence: there was a minor climax in May (repeated in July),
and a great autumnal climax in October, falling to a minimum in December
and January. This curve corresponds closely to that usually observed in
London.[170] It is not peculiar to London, or to urban districts, for in
rural districts we find nearly the same spring minor maximum and major
autumnal maximum. In Russia it is precisely the same. Many other epidemic
diseases show very similar curves.

An annual curve may be found in the expulsive force of the bladder as
measured by the distance to which the urinary stream can be projected.
This curve, as ascertained for one case, is interesting on account of the
close relationship between sexual and vesical activity. After a minimum
point in autumn there is a rise through the early part of the year to a
height maintained through spring and summer, and reaching its maximum in
August.[171] This may be said to correspond with the general tendency
found in some cases of nocturnal seminal emissions from a winter minimum
to an autumn maximum.

There is an annual curve in voluntary muscle strength. Thus in Antwerp,
where the scientific study of children is systematically carried out by a
Pedological Bureau, Schuyten found that, measured by the dynamometer, both
at the ages of 8 and 9, both boys and girls showed a gradual increase of
strength from October to January, a fall from January to March and a rise
to June or July. March was the weakest month, June and July the
strongest.[172]

Schuyten also found an annual curve for mental ability, as tested by power
of attention, which for much of the year corresponded to the curve of
muscular strength, being high during the cold winter months. Lobsien, at
Kiel, seeking to test Schuyten's results and adopting a different method
so as to gauge memory as well as attention, came to conclusions which
confirmed those of Schuyten. He found a very marked increase of ability in
December and January, with a fall in April; April and May were the
minimum months, while July and October also stood low.[173] The inquiries
of Schuyten and Lobsien thus seem to indicate that the voluntary aptitudes
of muscular and mental force in children reach their maximum at a time of
the year when most of the more or less involuntary activities we have been
considering show a minimum of energy. If this conclusion should be
confirmed by more extended investigations, it would scarcely be matter for
surprise and would involve no true contradiction. It would, indeed, be
natural to suppose that the voluntary and regulated activities of the
nervous system should work most efficiently at those periods when they are
least exposed to organic and emotional disturbance.

So persistent a disturbing element in spring and autumn suggests that some
physiological conditions underlie it, and that there is a real metabolic
disturbance at these times of the year. So few continuous observations
have yet been made on the metabolic processes of the body that it is not
easy to verify such a surmise with absolute precision. Edward Smith's
investigations, so far as they go, support it, and Perry-Coste's
long-continued observations of pulse-frequency seem to show with fair
regularity a maximum in early spring and another maximum in late
autumn.[174] I may also note that Haig, who has devoted many years of
observations to the phenomena of uric-acid excretion, finds that uric acid
tends to be highest in the spring months, (March, April, May) and lowest
at the first onset of cold in October.[175]

Thus, while the sexual climaxes of spring and autumn are rooted in animal
procreative cycles which in man have found expression in primitive
festivals--these, again, perhaps, strengthening and developing the sexual
rhythm--they yet have a wider significance. They constitute one among many
manifestations of spring and autumn physiological disturbance
corresponding with fair precision to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes.
They resemble those periods of atmospheric tension, of storm and wind,
which accompany the spring and autumn phases in the earth's rhythm, and
they may fairly be regarded as ultimately a physiological reaction to
those cosmic influences.


FOOTNOTES:

[128] F. Smith, _Veterinary Physiology_; Dalziel, _The Collie_.

[129] Mondière, Art "Cambodgiens," _Dictionnaire des Sciences
Anthropologiques_.

[130] This primitive aspect of the festival is well shown by the human
sacrifices which the ancient Mexicans offered at this time, in order to
enable the sun to recuperate his strength. The custom survives in a
symbolical form among the Mokis, who observe the festivals of the winter
solstice and the vernal equinox. ("Aspects of Sun-worship among the Moki
Indians," _Nature_, July 28, 1898.) The Walpi, a Tusayan people, hold a
similar great sun-festival at the winter solstice, and December is with
them a sacred month, in which there is no work and little play. This
festival, in which there is a dance dramatizing the fructification of the
earth and the imparting of virility to the seeds of corn, is fully
described by J. Walter Fewkes (_American Anthropologist_, March, 1898).
That these solemn annual dances and festivals of North America frequently
merge into "a lecherous _saturnalia_" when "all is joy and happiness," is
stated by H.H. Bancroft (_Native Races of Pacific States_, vol. i, p.
352).

[131] As regards the northern tribes of Central Australia, Spencer and
Gillen state that, during the performance of certain ceremonies which
bring together a large number of natives from different parts, the
ordinary marital rules are more or less set aside (_Northern Tribes of
Central Australia_, p. 136). Just in the same way, among the Siberian
Yakuts, according to Sieroshevski, during weddings and at the great
festivals of the year, the usual oversight of maidens is largely removed.
(_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, Jan.-June, 1901, p. 96.)

[132] R.E. Guise, _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1899, pp.
214-216.

[133] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, pp. 196 et seq. W. Crooke (_Journal
of the Anthropological Institute_, p. 243, 1899) also refers to the annual
harvest-tree dance and _saturnalia_, and its association with the seasonal
period for marriage. We find a similar phenomenon in the Malay Peninsula:
"In former days, at harvest-time, the Jakuns kept an annual festival, at
which, the entire settlement having been called together, fermented
liquor, brewed from jungle fruits, was drunk; and to the accompaniments of
strains of their rude and incondite music, both sexes, crowning themselves
with fragrant leaves and flowers, indulged in bouts of singing and
dancing, which grew gradually wilder throughout the night, and terminated
in a strange kind of sexual orgie." (W.W. Skeat, "The Wild Tribes of the
Malay Peninsula," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, 1902, p.
133.)

[134] Fielding Hall, _The Soul of a People_, 1898, Chapter XIII.

[135] See e.g., L. Dyer, _Studies of the Gods in Greece_, 1891, pp. 86-89,
375, etc.

[136] For a popular account of the Feast of Fools, see Loliée, "La Fête
des Fous," _Revue des Revues_, May 15, 1898; also, J.G. Bourke,
_Scatologic Rites of all Nations_, pp. 11-23.

[137] J. Grimm (_Teutonic Mythology_, p. 615) points out that the
observance of the spring or Easter bonfires marks off the Saxon from the
Franconian peoples. The Easter bonfires are held in Lower Saxony,
Westphalia, Lower Hesse, Geldern, Holland, Friesland, Jutland, and
Zealand. The Midsummer bonfires are held on the Rhine, in Franconia,
Thuringia, Swabia, Bavaria, Austria, and Silesia. Schwartz (_Zeitschrift
für Ethnologie_, 1896, p. 151) shows that at Lauterberg, in the Harz
Mountains, the line of demarcation between these two primitive districts
may still be clearly traced.

[138] _Wald und Feldkulte_, 1875, vol. i, pp. 422 et seq. He also mentions
(p. 458) that St. Valentine's Day (14th of February),--or Ember Day, or
the last day of February,--when the pairing of birds was supposed to take
place, was associated, especially in England, with love-making and the
choice of a mate. In Lorraine, it may be added, on the 1st of May, the
young girls chose young men as their valentines, a custom known by this
name to Rabelais.

[139] Rochholz, _Drei gaugöttinnen_, p, 37.

[140] Mannhardt, ibid., pp. 466 et seq. Also J.G. Frazer, _Golden Bough_,
vol ii, Chapter IV. For further facts and references, see K. Pearson (_The
Chances of Death_, 1897, vol, ii, "Woman as Witch," "Kindred
Group-marriage," and Appendix on "The '_Mailehn_' and '_Kiltgang_,'") who
incidentally brings together some of the evidence concerning primitive
sex-festivals in Europe. Also, E. Hahn, _Demeter und Baubo_, 1896, pp.
38-40; and for some modern survivals, see Deniker, _Races of Man_, 1900,
Chapter III. On a lofty tumulus near the megalithic remains at Carnac, in
Brittany, the custom still prevails of lighting a large bonfire at the
time of the summer solstice; it is called Tan Heol, or Tan St. Jean. In
Ireland, the bonfires also take place on St. John's Eve, and a
correspondent, who has often witnessed them in County Waterford, writes
that "women, with garments raised, jump through these fires, and conduct
which, on ordinary occasions would be reprobated, is regarded as excusable
and harmless." Outside Europe, the Berbers of Morocco still maintain this
midsummer festival, and in the Rif they light bonfires; here the fires
seem to be now regarded as mainly purificatory, but they are associated
with eating ceremonies which are still regarded as multiplicative.
(Westermarck, "Midsummer Customs in Morocco," _Folk-Lore_, March, 1905.)

[141] Mannhardt (op. cit., p. 469) quotes a description of an Ehstonian
festival in the Island of Moon, when the girls dance in a circle round the
fire, and one of them,--to the envy of the rest, and the pride of her own
family,--is chosen by the young men, borne away so violently that her
clothes are often torn, and thrown down by a youth, who places one leg
over her body in a kind of symbolical coitus, and lies quietly by her side
till morning. The spring festivals of the young people of Ukrainia, in
which, also, there is singing, dancing, and sleeping together, are
described in "Folk-Lore de l'Ukrainie." Kryptadia, vol. v, pp. 2-6, and
vol. viii, pp. 303 et seq.

[142] M. Kowalewsky, "Marriage Among the Early Slavs," _Folk-Lore_,
December, 1890.

[143] A. Tille, however (_Yule and Christmas_, 1899), while admitting that
the general Aryan division of the year was dual, follows Tacitus in
asserting that the Germanic division of the year (like the Egyptian) was
tripartite: winter, spring, and summer.

[144] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_ (English translation by Stallybrass),
pp. 612-630, 779, 788.

[145] Wellhausen, _Reste Arabischen Heidentums_, 1897, p. 98.

[146] See, e.g., the chapter on ritual in Gérard-Varet's interesting book,
_L'Ignorance et l'Irreflexion_, 1899, for a popular account of this and
allied primitive conceptions.

[147] Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia_, especially pp. 485, 571; regarding
the priestesses, Jastrow remarks: "Among many nations, the mysterious
aspects of woman's fertility lead to rites that, by a perversion of their
original import, appear to be obscene. The prostitutes were priestesses
attached to the Ishtar cult, and who took part in ceremonies intended to
symbolize fertility." Whether there is any significance in the fact that
the first two months of the Babylonian year (roughly corresponding to our
March and April), when we should expect births to be at a maximum, were
dedicated to Ea and Bel, who, according to varying legends, were the
creators of man, and that New Year's Day was the festival of Bau, regarded
as the mother of mankind, I cannot say, but the suggestion may be put
forward.

[148] _Celtic Heathendom_, p. 421.

[149] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, p. 1465. In England, the November,
bonfires have become merged into the Guy Fawkes celebrations. In the East,
the great primitive autumn festivals seem to have fallen somewhat earlier.
In Babylonia, the seventh month (roughly corresponding to September) was
specially sacred, though nothing is known of its festivals, and this also
was the sacred festival month of the Hebrews, and originally of the Arabs.
In Europe, among the southern Slavs, the Reigen, or Kolo--wild dances by
girls, adorned with flowers, and with skirts girt high, followed by sexual
intercourse--take place in autumn, during the nights following harvest
time.

[150] A. Tille, _Yule and Christmas_, p. 21, etc.

[151] Long before Wargentin, however, Rabelais had shown some interest in
this question, and had found that there were most christenings in October
and November, this showing, he pointed out, that the early warmth of
spring influenced the number of conceptions (_Pantagruel_, liv. v, Ch.
XXIX). The spring maximum of conceptions is not now so early in France.

[152] Villermé, "De la Distribution par mois des conceptions," _Annales
d'Hygiène Publique_, tome v, 1831, pp. 55-155.

[153] Sormani, _Giornale di Medicina Militare_, 1870.

[154] Throughout Europe, it may be said, marriages tend to take place
either in spring or autumn (Oettinger _Moralstatistik_, p. 181, gives
details). That is to say, that there is a tendency for marriages to take
place at the season of the great public festivals, during which sexual
intercourse was prevalent in more primitive times.

[155] Hill, _Nature_, July 12, 1888.

[156] G. Mayr, _Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben_, 1877, p. 240.

[157] Edward Smith (_Health and Disease_), who attributes this to the
lessened vitality of offspring at that season. Beukemann also states that
children born in September have most vitality.

[158] Westermarck has even suggested that the December maximum of
conceptions may be due to better chance of survival for September
offspring (_Human Marriage_, Chapter II). It may be noted that though the
maximum of conceptions is in May, relatively the smallest proportion of
boys is conceived at that time. (Rauber, _Der Ueberschuss an
Knabengeburten_, p. 39.)

[159] Krieger found that the great majority of German women investigated
by him menstruated for the first time in September, October, or November.
In America, Bowditch states that the first menstruation of country girls
more often occurs in spring than at any other season.

[160] _Women's Medical Journal_, 1894.

[161] It is, perhaps, worth while noting that the wisdom of the mediæval
Church found an outlet for this "spring fever" in pilgrimages to remote
shrines. As Chaucer wrote, in the _Canterbury Tales_:--

"Whané that Aprille with his showers sote
The droughts of March hath piercèd to the root,
Thaen longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,