BOTANICAL NOTES. 281 



me as a very ignorant and unobservant fellow. They have names 

 for and display a familiarity with man}'- plants that can be of no 

 service to them, a somewhat puzzling circumstance, which may be 

 perhaps explained by their employing instinctively a method of 

 exclusion in the selection of those plants that are of service to them. 

 For the building of his house, the cultivation of his ground, the 

 construction of his canoe, the manufacture of his spears, clubs, and 

 other weapons, and for his many other wants, the native has to 

 resort to the vegetable kingdom for the requisite materials. An 

 extensive acquaintance with the vegetation of his island-home is 

 unconsciously acquired by a native who has himself to provide for 

 all his necessities : but his knowledge extends far beyond that limit 

 which mere utility would appear to demand. In a paper published 

 recently in an American serial,^ Mr. Matthews combated the notion 

 that savages are versed only in the knowledge of plants and animals 

 that contribute to their wants. He found that the Indians are in- 

 comparably superior to the average white man, or to the white man 

 who has not made zoology or botany a subject of stud}^ In thi>v 

 respect, his experience accords with my own. The native of the 

 Solomon Islands will point out by name, in some remote inland dell,, 

 an insignificant plant, which, he says, is of no service to him : he 

 names all the weeds of his cultivated patches ; and he is similarly 

 acquainted with all the wild fruits, usually distinguishing them by 

 their edible or injurious qualities. Yet, in arriving at such a con- 

 clusion, it behoves one to be wary, as I have sometimes found that 

 the native applies the name of a useful plant to all other useless 

 plants (usually of the same genus or family) that resemble it in their 

 more conspicuous characters. Then, again, I have often been sur- 

 prised at the singular holes and corners in the vegetable world which 

 the native ransacks to supply his wants. A fern that clothes th& 

 higher slopes of Faro Island, and which is known to the natives as 

 " sinimi," and to the botanist as a species of Gleichenia, furnishes the 

 material for their plaited armlets. For this purpose they employ 

 narrow strips of the vascular tissue that forms the firm central 

 portion of the stem. I had previously looked upon this fern as of 

 little use to these islanders, and on learnino- of the inorenious- 

 purpose for which it was employed, I became veiy careful in the 

 future when pronouncing on the utility or inutility of any familiar 

 plant. 



1 "Bulletin of the PLilosopl.ical Society of WashiEgton," Vol. VII. 



