Stack. — O71 the Colour-Sense of the Maori. 153 



ture to conclude from the presence of these two fragments, that the 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. E. 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. 



Akt. X. — Notes on the Colour-Sense of the Maori. By James W. Stack. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury , ith September, 1879.] 



I AM 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 " Coloux-BHndness in relation 

 to the Homeric Expressions for Colom*." 



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 h-om the Homeric poems. Mr. Pole, on the other 

 hand, maintains that Homer was colom'-blind, and proceeds to establish 

 his views by evidence drawn from his own sensations of colour, which 

 coincide in a remarkable degree with the colom'-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 



13 



