10 NATURE | Nov. 3. 1870 


the American tribes, the inhabitants of Australia and New | obtainment of food and the manufacture of the means of 
Zealand, with India, China, Japan, and Siam. A short | getting it—the bow and arrow, blow-tube and poisoned 
notice is also given of the long-perished lake-dwellers of | shaft, the canoe, the javelin, the club, the boomerang, or 
Switzerland. |lasso; war and the requisite weapons or means of de- 
The general plan pursued by Mr. Wood in his account | fence ; dress, simple and slight as it often is ; and religious 
of different nations is necessarily very similar. The | observances of one kind or another, constitute, with the 



ee Le io hel 
SURF-SWIMMING IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS 
{nitiatory ceremonies attendant upon entrance into man- | the whole has to be worked up into the form of a con- 
hood, marriage and death, the principal occupations and | tinuous narrative. Mr. Wood appears to have care- 
events of the life of the savage, and these, of course, | fully selected his authorities, and has taken only what he 
form the staple of Mr. Wood’s work. To do this well, | considers trustworthy and reliable. To give some idea 
however, is no slight task, considerable reading and | of the method adopted, we may refer to his account 
comparison of the accounts of travellers is required, and of the Zulu Kaffirs, who he considers to have descended 
o- ee 
