148 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
io keep his bed again, being afflicted with some alarming symptoms. * * 
My father ordered bis Tahitian dog, the only one which still remained alive 
after our departure from the Friendly Islands, to be killed; it was cut into 
quarters which were served up to Captain Cook during several days, and 
gave him some nourishment, as he could not venture to taste the ship’s 
provisions. By such small helps we succeeded in preserving a life upon 
which the success of the voyage in a great measure depended." 
They succeeded, however, in taking alive to England one of the South 
Sea dogs on their return from their second voyage. And this dog had been 
a peculiar sufferer, for he (with others) had eaten of some very poisonous 
fish while in the tropics, and, after severe and long suffering, had nearly 
died; and he had also been repeatedly operated on, by inserting in his flesh 
poison scraped from the points of the poisoned arrows of the islanders, 
and yet he got over all! ‘‘ and was brought alive to England "—the first 
and only one of his race ! 
I have already said, that at some of the Polynesian Islands, our early 
voyagers found no dogs. J. R. Forster says :—‘‘ In all the low islands they 
have dogs (a race with long white hair), but no hogs; at the Friendly 
Islands, and at Tanna (New Hebrides), they had hogs but no dogs ; at the 
Marquesas, also, they had hogs but no dogs; while at New Caledonia they 
had neither hogs nor dogs. We gave at Amsterdam (Tongatapu) and at 
Tanna the first dogs; at New Zealand the first hogs and fowls; and at 
New Caledonia we left a couple of dogs, and another of pigs. They must 
formerly have had dogs at Amsterdam, because they knew the animal and 
were acquainted with its name, kuri, but have lost the species, as it should 
seem, by some accident." G. Forster’s graphic description of this intro- 
duction of the dog at Tongatapu is worthy of notice. He says :—“ Early 
the next morning Capt. Cook’s friend, Ataka (the principal chief of the 
islands) came on board in one of the first canoes and breakfasted with us. 
* * * After breakfast the captains and my father prepared to return to 
the shore with him; but just as he was going out of the cabin he happened 
to see a Tahitian dog running about the deck; at this sight he could not 
conceal his joy, but clapped his hands on his breast, and, turning to the 
captain, repeated the word kuri near twenty timés. We were much 
surprised to hear that he knew the name of an animal which did not exist 
in his country, and made him a present of one of each sex, with which he 
went on shore in an ecstasy of joy. That the name of dogs should be 
familiar with a people who are not possessed of them seems to prove either 
that this knowledge has been propagated by tradition from their ancestors, 
who migrated hither from other islands and the continent, or that they 
. have had dogs upon their island of which the race, by some accident, is 
