  For any Riemannian metric $ds^2$ on a compact surface of genus $g$, Yang and
Yau proved that the normalized first eigenvalue of the Laplacian
$\lambda_1(ds^2)Area(ds^2)$ is bounded in terms of the genus. In particular, if
$\Lambda_1(g)$ is the supremum for each $g$, it follows that the asymptotic
growth of the sequence ${\Lambda_1(g)}$ is no larger than the one of $4\pi g$.
In this paper we improve the result and we show that \[ \limsup_{g\,
\rightarrow\, \infty} \, \frac{1}{g}\Lambda_1(g) \leq 4(3-\sqrt{5})\pi \approx
3.056\pi. \]
