DIFFERENT TYPES. 103 



to notice amongst the wives of the chiefs two castes of women of 

 very different appearance, the one with elegant figure and carnage, 

 slim limbs and more delicately cut features, the other more clumsily 

 proportioned with stout ungainly limbs and a coarse type of 

 features. 



I found that two constant variations in the type of the Solomon 

 Island native are presented by the natives of the islands of Bougain- 

 ville Straits (including Choiseul Bay), and the natives of St. 

 Christoval and its adjoining islands at the opposite end of the group. 

 In the former region there exists a taller, darker, more robust, and 

 more brae hy cephalic race ; whilst in the latter locality the average 

 native is shortei', less vigorous, of a lighter hue, and his skull has a 

 mure dolichocephalic index. From 85 to 40 natives were examined 

 in each region, and some of the principal distinctions may be thus 

 tabulated : 



St. Christoval, 

 Bougainville Straits,.. 



In the districts of XJrasi and the Uta Pass on the north coast of 

 Malaita,^ thei^e would appear to exist an almost brachycephalic race, 

 of a lighter hue than is possessed by the natives of Bougainville 

 Straits. Differences are in fact constant in their localities through- 

 out the group, the most marked that came under my observation 

 being between the natives of Bougainville Straits and those of St. 

 Christoval at the opposite end of the group, as already alluded to. 

 D'Urville, the French navigator, who visited this group in 1838, 

 contrasts in a similar way the natives of St. Christoval and Isabel 

 with those of Bougainville. The former appeared to him small and 

 feeble in comparison with the more vigorous, sturdier, and much 

 blacker natives of the latter island. He was particularly struck 

 with the diminutive and wretched appearance of the natives of 

 Isabel around " Thousand-Ships Bay," as compared with the vigorous 



well-made natives of Boujxainville.^ In some islands of small 



size, we find the natives markedly different from those around them. 

 In the small island of Santa Catalina, off the eastern end of St. 



1 1 was indebted to the Hon. Curzon Howe, Government Agent of the labour hooncr 

 " Lavina," for the opportunity of examining these Malaita natives. 

 2 "Voyage au Pole Sud et dans I'Oceanie," (Tome V., p. 1C5, hist, du voyage.) 



