Royal Physical Society. All 



solely, heard. He was never able to accustom himself to it, and 

 never heard it without a thrill passing through him, such as 

 he supposed might be the case with one who heard the Irish 

 banshees (and believed in them). It is known by the natives 

 under the name of owuri or owari, a name having some re- 

 semblance to its cry. They have a tradition accounting for 

 the melancholy nature of the cry, — simple, like the story of a 

 child, as all their traditions are, but containing incidental 

 allusions which throw light both upon the manners of the 

 people and the productions of their country. It is this : — 

 The owuri went into the forest one day to get something for 

 its dinner. It gathered a great quantity of pumpkin leaves, 

 and brought them home and gave them to its mother, that 

 she might cook them for dinner, and then went out again. 

 The mother put the leaves into the pot to boil ; but it is the 

 nature of pumpkin leaves to boil away almost to nothing, and 

 by the time they were boiled, instead of a great dishful there 

 was nothing left but a little handful in the bottom of the pot. 

 By and bye the owuri came back for his dinner, and when he 

 saw the little quantity remaining, he thought his mother had 

 eaten all the rest up, got into a great rage, took up a stick 

 and struck her on the head, so that he killed her. He had 

 still to procure his dinner, however ; and he again went out 

 and gathered a fresh'supply of the same leaves ; returned, and 

 set about cooking them himself. When he found that they 

 were boiling rapidly away, it began to dawn upon him that he 

 perhaps might have been too hasty with his mother ; and when 

 he finally found that they had diminished to a similar handful 

 to that cooked by her, he awoke to a full sense of remorse for 

 his crime, and rushed frantically from the house, calling out, 

 " Ou-ai, Ow-ai- — I've killed my mother, I've killed my mother 

 — Ou-ai, Ow-ai ;" and from that day to this has continued 

 making the same lamentation, the dolefulness and eeriness 

 of which have so impressed the feelings of the missionaries. 

 The natives hold it in great dread, believing its bite to be 

 very venomous, even when the reptile is young, and actually 

 fatal when of a larger size. 



It belongs to the group of Scincidos, which have certainly, 

 in outward appearance, more resemblance to snakes than any 



