m in the autumn period. This steady upward progress is not seen in
each year taken separately. In three years there is a fall in passing from
the November-January to the February-April quarter (always followed by a
rise in the subsequent quarter); in three cases there is a fall in passing
from the second to the third quarter (again always followed by a rise in
the following quarter), and in two successive years there is a fall in
passing from the third to the fourth quarter. If, however, beginning at
the second year, we summate the results for each year with those for all
previous years, a steady rise from season to season is seen throughout. If
we analyze the data according to the months of the year, still more
precise and interesting results (as shown in the curve, Chart 3) are
obtained; two maximum points are seen, one in spring (March), one in
autumn (October, or, rather, August-October), and each of these maximum
points is followed by; a steep and sudden descent to the minimum points in
April and in December. If we compare this result with Perry-Coste's also
extending over a long series of years, we find a marked similarity. In
both alike there are spring and autumn maxima, in both the autumn maximum
is the highest, and in both also there is an intervening fall. In both
cases, again, the maxima are followed by steep descents, but while in both
the spring maximum occurs in March, in Perry-Coste's case the second
maximum, though of precisely similar shape, occurs earlier, in
June-September instead of August-October. In Perry-Coste's case, also,
there is an apparently abnormal tendency, only shown in the more recent
years of the record, to an additional maximum in January. The records
certainly show far more points of agreement than of discrepancy, and by
their harmony, as well with each other as with themselves, when the years
are taken separately, certainly go far to prove that there is a very
marked annual rhythm in the phenomena of seminal emissions during sleep,
or, as Nelson has termed it, the ecbolic curve. We see, also, that the
great yearly organic climax of sexual effervescence corresponds with the
period following harvest, which, throughout the primitive world, has been
a season of sexual erethism and orgy; though those customs have died out
of our waking lives, they are still imprinted on our nervous texture, and
become manifest during sleep.

The fresh records that have reached me since the first editio