August i8, 1898] 



NATURE 



365 



he had undertaken, and which, under more favourable 

 auspices, he might have finished by this time. On com- 

 paring some of the entries, even in this small fragment 

 we come across several which are most interesting. It is 

 well known that the Maoris call their gods Atuas. But 

 the question is, why ? It seems at first sight as if Atua 

 was derived from atu, a particle expressive of many 

 things. Mr. Colenso enumerates thirty-three meanings of 

 it, one of which is an emphatic very^ used also to form 

 superlatives and to express extraordinary greatness, or 

 anything that goes beyond everything else. Atua may 

 have been derived from it, though it seems to convey 

 not so much the idea of exceeding greatness as of 

 being terrible. Hence it is used as a name of any 

 supernatural and malevolent being, a demon, and 

 also of their gods, many of whom were more or less 

 malevolent. The most dreaded and powerful Atuas 

 were Tii, Rongo, Tane, Tangaroa, Taiuhiri ntatea, and 

 IV/ii'ro, four of whom appear again as the gods of Hawaii, 

 viz. Tu, Lono (Rongo), Kane (Tane), and Kanaloa 

 (Tangaroa). All of these, though invoked, were hated 

 and often threatened by their worshippers. Idols also 

 are called atua^ and a number of imaginary invisible 

 evil powers, genii, spooks and gnomes, go by the same 

 name. Atua is applied also to sickness, pain and 

 death, as personified, in fact, to anything abnormal and 

 monstrous, disgusting and disagreeable. Natives who 

 never touch pork, eels, or even mutton, call them also 

 atua; in fact, anything uncanny or unlucky is atua. It 

 was unfortunate that the same word should have been 

 taken by the missionaries as the name of the Deity, the 

 one true God, the God of the Christians. This to the 

 natives sounded at first like a solecism, but in the course 

 of time it has lost its original meaning, and serves its 

 purpose now as the name of the God of Love. Mr. 

 Colenso would prefer Matua^ Matua-pai for that purpose, 

 though Matua itself is but a derivative oi Atua. 



One remark we should like to make in conclusion. Mr. 

 Colenso generally adds Maori sentences in proof of the 

 meaning assigned to each Maori word. But, alas ! he 

 gives no translations ; and as the study of Maori has not 

 yet been recognised in our schools and universities, much 

 of the usefulness of these pihes justificatives is lost on 

 those who consult his dictionary, however convinced they 

 may feel that Mr. Colenso has rightly interpreted them. 



THE SPIDERS OF HUNGARY. 



Aranece hungarice . . . consctiptcB a Cornelio Chyzer et 

 Ladislao Kulczyhski. Vols, i.-ii. (Budapesth : 1891- 

 1897.) 



OWING to the homogeneous character of the fauna 

 of Central Europe, this work, although purporting 

 to deal merely with the spiders of Hungary, forms an 

 admirable basis for the study of the species that in- 

 habit the rest of the continent. The determination of 

 the species occurring in the area over which the authors' 

 researches have extended, has of necessity involved a 

 comparison between them and the species previously 

 recorded from Scandinavia, Prussia, Great Britain and 

 France by Clerck, VVestring, Menge, Koch, Blackwall, 

 Walckenaer, Simon and others. The fact that so many 

 NO. 1503, VOL. 58] 



naturalists have worked more or less independently, 

 sometimes indeed contemporaneously, at the spiders of 

 their respective countries has unavoidably caused a great 

 deal of clashing in the specific nomenclature ; and the 

 endeavour to clear away the resulting confusion certainly 

 forms the most difficult part of the labours of an author 

 who attempts at the present time to monograph the 

 spiders of any area in Europe. It is evident that Dr. 

 Chyzer and Prof Kulczynski have in nowise shirked 

 their duty in this respect ; and although it is improbable 

 that their efforts have met in every instance with the 

 success they deserve, it would be unfair to lay to their 

 charge the blame for any failures that may hereafter 

 come to light. Rather must the responsibility rest with 

 those of their predecessors and contemporaries who, 

 especially when dealing with the more obscure species, 

 have failed to realise the importance of setting aside, as 

 a standard for future comparison, one typical example 

 out of a series of specimens upon which a description 

 was based, or have regarded subsequently and, as results 

 have shown, often wrongly identified examples as of 

 equal importance to the one upon which the species was 

 originally established. 



Of the excellence of the book as a whole the names 

 of the authors is sufficient guarantee. A passing word of 

 praise, however, must be bestowed upon the method in 

 which the specific and generic diagnoses are dealt with, 

 since it is a method which might with advantage be 

 imitated by all systematic workers who wish to lighten 

 the labours of those that come after them. The 

 characters of the species and genera are set forth in 

 tabular or synoptic form, so that they may be readily 

 comprehended, and so that a spider of unknown affinities 

 may be rapidly identified, even by a student unfamiliar 

 with the taxonomic features of the family to which it 

 belongs. Such tables, moreover, have the further ad- 

 vantage of inspiring confidence in the ability of an 

 author, since they bear witness to the gift of the scientific 

 faculty of analysis, the absence of which too often renders 

 abortive the efforts of many a systematic zoologist. 



Since the families to which the spiders enumerated 

 belong are not diagnosed, it may be supposed that these 

 volumes are not intended for the use of beginners, 

 but only for those who have mastered the first prin- 

 ciples of the classification of the Araneaj This is, I 

 think, an omission which somewhat impairs the value 

 of the work. One page, or, perhaps, two pages at most, 

 might with great advantage and but little trouble have 

 been devoted to a tabular representation of the groups of 

 this rank, exactly as has been done in the case of the 

 genera and species. Unfortunately it is quite the fashion 

 amongst arachnologists to fight shy of such a task. 



Another slight blemish, in my opinion, is the adoption 

 of such terms as Misumenoidte and Calommatoidae for 

 the older and better known Thomisida; and Atypidaj 

 respectively. The former, and others that could be 

 named, were introduced by Dr. Thorell for reasons that 

 appeared inadequate to most of his contemporaries. 

 Happily they have been recently abandoned by the 

 author to whom they owed their existence, and but for 

 their reappearance in the present case would by this time 

 in all probability have dropped into merited oblivion. 



This, however, is after all a matter of very little 



