758 DISTRIBUTION OF THE GENUS MEGAPODIUS IN PACIFIC. 



are mentioned (p. 446) by Ogilvie-Grant, viz. : 1. Young birds 

 said to have been obtained on Lord Howe's Island ; 2. The 

 Megapode of Sunday Island in the Kermadec group ; and 

 3. M. ? andersoni of Gray from New Caledonia. The first of these 

 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant assures me is now known to have come not 

 from Lord Howe's Island, but from New Hope Island, another 

 name for Muafou. With the second I have already dealt. The 

 third is based on a reference in the MS. of Anderson, who 

 accompanied Cook's third voyage, to a bird he called Tetrao 

 australis and briefly described as follows : — " fusca nigraque ; 

 pedibus nudis." The subsequent exploration of New Caledonia 

 has not revealed the presence of a Megapode on that island. 



To sum up : There is evidence of the domestication or semi- 

 domestication of Megapodes in several parts of the area they 

 inhabit, — viz., in the Solomon Islands, Vv^estern New Guinea and 

 the Marianne Islands, and of their introduction into the Maldive 

 Islands. There is no satisfactory evidence that a Megapode has 

 ever existed on any Pacific island east of a line bordering the 

 Philippines, Solomon Islands, and New Hebrides except the 

 Pelews, Marianne Islands, and Niuafou. The geological character 

 of these islands, so far as we know it, lends no support to the 

 view that they could preserve the fauna of a sunken land-mass. 

 The birds of the Pelew and Marianne Islands are almost identical, 

 and on the latter group they were domesticated. The bird of 

 Niuafou is called by a Malay name. 



When we consider the complex movements of the races of the 

 Western Pacific, of which thei-e is much anthropological evidence, 

 and how easily Megapodes might be introduced into a new locality 

 by a canoe provisioned with their eggs, which are a staple native 

 food, it would appear that we have in human agency a probable 

 key to some of the anomalies of their distribution. 



The analogy of the distribution by native agency of domestic 

 fowls, cousins of the Megapodiidse, and of the dogs and pigs 

 which were found by the early voyagers on the Pacific Islands, is 

 obvious. 



How far the same cause may have been operative within 

 the main area occupied by the genus, and have given rise to the 

 anomalies in the distribution of the species alluded to by Oustalet, 

 is too large and complex a subject for me to attempt to deal with. 



The Savo natives, says Mr. Woodford,* speaking of 31. eremita 

 of the Solomon Islands, have a curious legend connected with this 

 bird. They hold the Shark in great veneration and say that their 

 island was made by the Shark, who brought stones together and 

 placed upon them a man, a woman, the Yam plant, and the 

 Megapodes. Things went well for a time and the people increased 

 and so did the Megapodes. At last the people went to the Shark 

 and complained that the Megapodes made havoc among the yam 



* C. M. Woodford, P. Z. S. 1888, p. 249. 



