Srack.—On the Colour-Sense of the Maori. 158 
ture to conclude from the presence of these two fragments, that tho visitors 
to that locality were already addicted to cannibalism. 
Possibly the bone may have belonged to a stranger or to a slave, having 
been broken at the time of death to be used for making tools. I have no 
doubt that further researches which Mr. R. Gillies intends to make in this 
spot, will throw more light on this subject. The only other specimen of 
human workmanship found amongst this layer of refuse is a small fish-hook 
made of bone. It is of a very primitive form, unlike any other I have 
hitherto obtained elsewhere. Of other material of the manufactory layer, 
there were a few small pieces of flint and chalcedonic quartz, cores, thrown 
away as useless. 
Art. X.—Notes on the Colour-Sense of the Maori. By James W. STACK. 
[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 4th September, 1879.] 
Tam indebted to Captain Hutton for calling my attention to a discussion, 
which took place a short time ago, between Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Pole, 
with reference to the colour-sense of the Greeks. 
The question was raised by Mr. Gladstone, in the October number of 
the “Nineteenth Century” (1877), and his statements were subsequently 
reviewed by Mr. William Pole, in an article which appeared in the October 
number of ** Nature" (1878), under the title of ** Colour-Blindness in relation 
to the Homerie Expressions for Colour." 
Mr. Gladstone maintains that the organ of colour was only partially 
developed among the Greeks of the heroic age; and supports his opinion 
by many examples drawn from the Homerie poems. Mr. Pole, on the other 
hand, maintains that Homer was eolour-blind, and proceeds to establish 
his views by evidence drawn from his own sensations of colour, which 
coineide in a remarkable degree with the colour-expressions in Homer, as 
interpreted by Mr. Gladstone. 
The question raised is one full of interest, both to the scholar and to 
the naturalist, whether as regarded from its bearing on the controversy 
respecting the authorship of the Homeric poems, or on the development of 
a human sense within a period of time known to history. 
But I shall not presume to follow the arguments of either of these 
learned writers upon the question in dispute between them, neither my 
scholarship nor my acquaintance with the subject would entitle me to do so. 
Mine is the more modest task of furnishing such facts regarding the colour- 
sense of the Maoris, as have come under my observation, during more than 
18 
