138 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
which I am the more inclined seeing the books themselves are very scarce 
and scarcely even known by name in the colony. 
The South Sea dog was first seen by Captain Cook and his companions 
at Tahiti; and it is worthy of something more than a mere passing notice 
to bear in mind, that, while it was also found by them here in New Zealand, 
there were several intervening islands and groups at which Cook called where 
the dog was not found. Generally speaking, the natives of the various 
Polynesian isles he visited possessed three domestic animals—the pig, the 
dog, and the common poultry fowl; but few possessed all three: some had 
but two, and some (as New Zealand) only one. And yet it seems to me 
pretty evident that the natives of those isles in which one or two of those 
animals were wholly wanting, both knew and gave the right common name 
for them to Cook’s party when they saw the animal for the first time in his 
ship ! 
Captain Cook, on his first voyage anchored at Tahiti on the 10th April, 
1769, and though he and his party were daily on shore and had strolled 
miles in the country to visit plantations and villages, and had also held 
daily markets for purchasing food, etc. of all kinds which the islanders 
brought for sale, yet his first entry concerning the South Sea dog was on 
the 20th of June ! which, being in every respect peculiar, I may in part copy. 
Writing of Operea, a great lady of the island, he says:—** As the most 
effectual means to bring about a reconciliation between us, she presented us 
with a hog and several other things, among which was a dog. We had 
lately learnt that these animals were esteemed by the Indians as more 
delicate food than their pork, and upon this-oecasion we determined to try 
the experiment. The dog, which was very fat, we consigned over to Tupaea, 
who undertook to perform the double office of butcher and cook. He killed 
him by holding his hands close over his mouth and nose, an operation 
which continued over a quarter of an hour. While this was doing an oven 
was made in the ground. * * The dog, being well cleaned and prepared, 
with the entrails and blood in cocoa-nut shells, was then placed in the 
oven : in about four hours it was opened and the dog taken out excellently 
baked, and we all agreed that he made a very good dish. The dogs which 
are here bred to be eaten taste no animal food, but are kept wholly upon 
bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, yams, and other vegetables of the like kind. * * 
We all agreed that a South Sea dog was little inferior to an English lamb ; 
their excellence is probably owing to their being kept up and fed wholly upon 
vegetables. *  * Here are no tame animals except hogs, dogs, and 
poultry, and these are by no means plentiful.” * 
Sydney Parkinson, however, has an earlier entry than this, made in 
* Cook's Voyages, 4to. ed., 1773, vol. IL, pp. 152, 196. 
