344 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
Cook made his famous voyage, the immediate object being ob- 
servations on the transit of Venus. Incidentally he fixed the 
names of many groups of islands in the South Pacific, Cook 
Island, which we visited but a few days ago, the Society Islands, 
one of which is Tahiti, named in honor of the Royal Society 
under whose auspices Cook sailed, and a number of others. 
On this ride I met with the only serious personal loss of the 
entire trip. Of course I had my camera along and took a num- 
ber of photographs and in some way dropped my book contain- 
ing notes and records of exposures and other photographie mat- 
ter. I imagine it occurred while I was walking about in the 
brush trying to get a good picture of Venus Point lighthouse; 
at any rate I never saw it again, although I left notice of re- 
ward to the finder. Fortunately my negatives were all serially 
numbered and most of the subjects noted in my daily journal so 
that I was able afterwards to recognize and properly designate 
all of the photographs. 
That evening while the Tahiti was still tied up to the dock, 
I noticed a Chinese man and boy paddling a small canoe along 
the side of the ship picking up stray bits of bread thrown from 
the cook’s galley. These were deftly skimmed from the surface 
on a paddle blade and put in the shallow basket in the bow of 
the canoe. I suppose no people in the world are more scrupulous 
about salvaging every particle of food than are the Chinese, 
which doubtless accounts for their thrift the world over. 
At Papeete we were joined by a motion picture outfit that had 
been making a film at Tahiti, utilizing the magnificent scenery 
of that tropical wonderland to make a blood-and-thunder picture 
of the South Seas. Some of the outfit came aboard more than 
‘‘half-seas over’’ and proceeded to make a ‘‘rough-house’’ of our 
peaceful vessel much to the disquiet of the Americans of our 
party, as it was an American company of course. One big brute 
of a fellow who was doubtless the heavy villain of the story, 
made himself particularly obnoxious, roaring like a mad bull at 
the stewards and using a vocabulary that I have seldom heard 
surpassed in profanity and indecency. I believe the company 
included some thirty people all told, and the prospect of being 
shipmates with them for two weeks was not alluring. 
The Society Islands, the main one of which is Tahiti in S. 
Lat. 18°, W. Long. 160°, were discovered by Captain Cook in 
1769 and have a population of eleven thousand, about one-tenth 
