In Messrs. Spencer and Gillen’s work on Australia there is one passage which suggests another possible cause for the origin of female dress. When speaking about the souls of ancestors, which, for the purpose of reincarnation, try to find a way to the bodies of young women, the authors say that “spirit children are also supposed to be especially fond of travelling in whirlwinds, and on seeing one of these, which are very frequent at certain times of the year, approaching her a woman will at once run away.”[322] Now, this notion that the wind is capable of bringing about impregnation is by no means confined to the Australian aborigines. Mr. Hartland has been able to adduce testimonies of its occurrence not only in savage tribes, but also among the Romans of Virgil’s time.[323] And the Hottentots have an almost similar superstition, viz. that a pouring rain, when falling on the naked body, promotes conception.[324] The belief in the fertilising powers of sunshine, well known from European folklore and frequently illustrated in literature, from the Danaë legends upwards to the mysterious warnings of Hamlet to Ophelia, can of course be quoted as indications of the same universal “folk-belief.”[325] It would only be natural if the women, who so anxiously try to escape from the dangers of fecundation that surround them on all sides in the atmosphere, had found out the simple expedient of protecting themselves by clothing. We cannot, of course, positively assert that the wearing of clothes was originally due to superstitious reasons. We have only wished to point out that such an hypothesis can be proposed and consistently defended. It accounts not only for the especial character of the simplest dresses, but also, which is more important, for the fact of their being adopted only when sexual maturity is reached.