184 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
the figures are made of the pearly abalone shells with black pupils 
for centers. Elaborate spiral designs are common and we were 
told that the idea was derived from the manner of unfolding of 
circinate fronds of the tree ferns so common in New Zealand. 
Human figures in these carvings are always represented, so far as 
I saw, as having but three fingers or toes on each hand or foot. 
I was unable to find an explanation for this, but heard a sug- 
gestion that this was a token of high rank among the old Maori. 
These people are said to have emigrated from Rarotonga and 
Tahiti five or six centuries ago, traveling in the great canoes that 
have become historic, just as the caravels of Columbus and the 
Mayflower are famous in our annals. There are some gruesome 
specimens of the art of preserving human heads by the Maori 
method of smoke drying, their elaborate tattooing, or rather face 
carving, and the fact that the lips have shrunk away from the 
protruding teeth give them a horribly grotesque expression. These 
heads, by the way, were formerly much in demand as curios, and 
the accommodating natives readily furnished them to traders, ship 
captains, ete., which resulted in quite a brisk trade that had to 
be sternly repressed by law. 
At the office of the Union Line 8. S. Company, I found that, 
on the request of Mr. Irons, Vancouver Manager of the Canadian 
Australasian Royal Mail Line, reservations had been made for our 
return trip, Wellington to San Francisco, on the ‘‘Tahiti’’ sailing 
August 15. 
On July 13 Stoner, Thomas, Glock and I visited the island of 
Rangitoto in a fast launch kindly placed at our disposal by Mr. 
Hamer, the Harbor-Master at Auckland. The early ride through 
the harbor and out into the gulf was a delightful experience; it 
was a bright sunny morning, the sky and the sea both were in- 
tensely blue. 
At about ten we reached Rangitoto, on which is the mountain 
of the same name, one of the most prominent hills visible from 
Auckland. The island is entirely voleaniec and the mountain itself 
one of the most recently formed of the voleanie cones in that part 
of New Zealand. It is quite symmetrical and has a deep crater 
a little to one side of the summit. There is a good trail made by 
the voluntary labor of the people who use the island as a summer 
resort. Anywhere aside from the narrow trail the surface is a 
mass of jagged, sharp-edged rocks of scoria interrupted often by 
impenetrable bush. We saw a great profusion of unusually 
