w so early in France.

[152] Villerme, "De la Distribution par mois des conceptions," _Annales
d'Hygiene 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 Gesetzmaessigkeit 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 mediaeval
Church found an outlet for this "spring fever" in pilgrimages to remote
shrines. As Chaucer wrote, in the _Canterbury Tales_:--

"Whane that Aprille with his showers sote
The droughts of March hath pierced to the root,
Thaen longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken strange stronds."

[162] L.W. Kline, "The Migratory Impulse," _American Journal of
Psychology_, 1898, vol. x, especially pp. 21-24.

[163] Mania comes to a crisis in spring, said the old physician, Aretaeus
(Bk. 1, Ch. V).

[164] This is, at all events, the case in France, Prussia, and Italy. See,
for instance, Durkheim's discussion of the cosmic factors of suicide, _Le
Suicide_, 1897, Chapter III. In Spain, as Bernaldo de Quiros shows
(_Criminologia_, p. 69), there is a slight irregular rise in December, but
otherwise the curve is perfectly r