April 1, 1890.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



115 



A Nnturidixt Aiiiniiii tlir llcml Hunters; heimi an Account 

 of Three Visits t» the S„U„ium Ishtnih in 188G, 1887, ((mi 

 1888. By C. M. Woodford. (London: Philip & Son, 

 1890.) There are many collecting crazes, all of which 

 probably tend to weaken the moral sense. For the ardour 

 of the collector, whether he covets his neighbom-'s skull or 

 coins or rare Elzevirs, makes him not too careful as to the 

 means whereby the end is reached. We must not there- 

 fore judge too harshly or hastily the form which the 

 passion takes among the Solomon Islands' natives and 

 other barbaric peoples, with whom the main business of 

 life appears to be the taking of each other's heads. For 

 head-hunting, although connected with cannibal or sacri- 

 ficial practices, is often mdependent of both, being largely 



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T- '■•S'iJS 



due to the desire to collect proofs of skill and power, as, 

 among ourselves, the hunting man adorns his hall with 

 the trophies of the chase. Thus it is that among the 

 natives of the Solomon Islands expeditions are made in 

 large and well-built canoes, by parties numbering thirty or 

 forty men, armed with spears and ritlps, who pounce upon 

 the coast villages, and either cut olV the heads of the in- 

 habitants or defer that operation till a new canoe is 

 launched or a collection needs additions. The Solomon 

 Islands were discovered in 1,108, and were named after the 

 wisest of nu'ii by their shrewd discoverer, Mendafia, a 

 Spaniard, with the design that liis countrymen, supposing 

 them to be the source whence Solomon obtained his gold, 



might be induced to colonise them. They were lost sight 

 of for two hundred years, and their existence questioned 

 until their re-discovery towards the end of last century. 

 They are, for the most part, densely wooded, and peopled 

 with tribes between whom internecine strife is chronic. 

 They are full of interest to the geologist and the natiu'alist, 

 yielding evidence to both that they have not been connected 

 with any continent. Their coasts are fringed with the 

 useful coco-nut palm, traflic in the fi'uit of which brings 

 out the smartness of the natives, who are always ready to 

 make out that they do not know how many coco-nuts 

 make ten ; as a general rule it is seven and a half with 

 them, but sometimes it is only six ! Further inland plan- 

 tations of sago palms flourish in the swampy ground, 

 yielding one crop of nuts and then dying, the once fruitful 

 trunk becoming nothing " but a collection of rotten brown 

 fibres." The main object of Mr. Woodford's visits was to 



Cocosur Pa 



View on the Seashore. 



collect the fauna of the islands, in which he was success- 

 ful, his additions to our knowledge having nuich interest in 

 tl'.emselves, as well as value in thoir bearing upon the 

 problems of geographical distribution. Among the most 

 remarkable of these additions are a rat which measures 

 two feet from nose to tip of tail, and two genera of 

 bats whicli form a very imjiortant link in the life-history 

 of the t'hiroptera, while among more familiar forms of 

 those regions are the great coco-nut robber crabs, 

 monster lizards five feet long, and gorgeous butterflies 

 measuring nine inches across the wings. The natives 

 themselves are ty))ical examples of tlie result of occasional 

 intercourse with the whites, the varnish but thinly con- 



