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Recent levels and trends of mortality and fertility of the minority Maori population of New Zealand are analysed. On this basis two projections for the year 1976 are presented, the first assuming a further rise in life expectation, which has already increased rapidly over the last two decades and the other that both mortality and the consistently high fertility levels will be reduced. Last century the decrease of the Maori population appeared to prove that culture contact led to the "racial suicide" of "inferior races." Their plight was widely recognized both in New Zealand and abroad, and gave rise to a series of speculative, even bizarre, essays dealing with the "Passing of the Maori." The sole concern of this paper is with the components of the rapid Maori growth rate-- mortality and fertility. Once these variables have been analysed it will be possible to speculate about future short-term trends of growth. At each census date some age group of males showed higher survival rates than did the same section of the female population. At the earlier period, survivorship levels were lower among females than among males over a wider span of ages, but mainly at childbearing and post-childbearing ages.

The article discusses the studies conducted on the mechanisms governing the sex ratio in Rumex acetosa and Rumex Acetosella. It states that there is a prominent contrast between the sex ratios of natural populations of R. acetosa and R. acetosella. According to A. Löve, natural populations of R. acetosela in North Wales and Scandinavia, have a sex ratio of 1 male: 1 female, although W. Harris has found few populations in New Zealand that depart significantly from a 1:1 sex ratio. In 1961, F. S. Anderson studied the results of a large number of experiments with species and discovered that in some species, the proportion of females decreases with increasing density.

The article presents estimates of New Zealand Maori vital rates from the mid-nineteenth century to World War I. Recently, some South Pacific populations appear to have undergone rapid declines in mortality after decades of very high death rates. The available evidence suggests that mortality levels increased after contact with Europeans reaching peaks in the nineteenth century, particularly during epidemics, then declined gradually until the period of accelerated decrease after World War II. Probably the birth rate was, under normal circumstances, reasonably high. To obtain estimated vital rates for the population as a whole one must use enumeration data as a base. There are many methods available to carry out such an analysis, but the minimum requirement is the availability of at least one and preferably two censuses with a published breakdown by quinquennial age groups. Moreover, the populations under analysis should, in principle, be closed and stable. For a "closed" population it is not necessary to assume that the structure is quasi-stable if one uses for estimates the survivorship of cohorts between censuses as a basis. However, there is the problem of intercensal differences in the quality of enumeration for the same cohort.

This article presents a fertility analysis of New Zealand marriage cohorts. Of the two possible lines of investigation that the vital statistics offer for a cohort analysis, namely, birth cohorts and marriage cohorts, the present study is concerned with marriage cohorts. Some results will be summarized in Section III under three heads, one, fertility rates specific for marriage duration and for birth order; second, parity progression ratios for cohorts of virtually completed fertility; and third, "timing" of births of order 1 to 4. The limitations of the present report which is part of a wider project should be stated at once: One, until an analysis of the same material in terms of birth cohorts has been made, the relative merits of studying the experience of either marriage cohorts or birth cohorts cannot be fully assessed. Second, the question of spacing has been neglected for the present. The published material alone throws no light on the question of significant differentials in spacing of births of consecutive order between families of different size. third, the present analysis essentially disregards nuptiality, although, as will appear later, some results lend point to the contention that it is only a combination of fertility and nuptiality experience that will lead to an adequate evaluation of observed variations.