138 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



which I am the more hiclined seeing the hooks themselves are very scarce 

 and scarcely even known hy 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 s]peaking, 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 jei 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 saj's : — " 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 occasion 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 hom% 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, II., pp. 162, 196. 



