In the literature on the Alaskan Eskimo one meets not infrequently with statements that these people have but few children. Some of the writers do not qualify this, but others incline to attribute the fact to low fecundity.' I have mentioned one or two such notes in my 'Anthropological Survey in Alaska'2 and others are given by Petroff, Nelson, in Anderson and Eell's 'Alaska Natives.' They all were due primarily to the fact that large living families among these Eskimos a r e uncommon. The only statistical data bearing on the subject, to date, are those of the U. S. Census4 and are also given in Anderson and Eell. They a r e indirect but instructive. The main records f ~l l o w : ~ "The live birth-rate per 1,000 of the Eskimo population in 1928 was 47.1 as based on returns from twelve representative villages. The birth-rate per 1,000 in the registration area in the United States for the same year was 19.7." 'Thus J. Murdoch, in his "Dress and Physique of the Point Barrow Eskimos,'' Pop. Sci. Month., December, 1890, 222-223, says: " T h e women are not prolific. Although all the adults are or have been married, many of them a r e childless, and few have more than two children. One wcjman was known to have at least four, but investigations of this sort were rendered extremely difficult by the universal custom of adoption. ' '