FURTHER NOTES ON NEMESIA GILLIESII. IO3 



my experience with the nests the number of egg-cells or chambers in 

 each is from five to eight, and they vary considerably in size. I may 

 add that on December 26th last, I was stung between the fingers by 

 one of these wasps, but the sting was neither so sore or painful as the 

 sting of the humble-bee (Apis mellifica). I may also add that two 

 other species of spider-hunting wasps, viz., P. monachus and P. carbo- 

 narias, are both common in the Waiareka valley, the locality where 

 the trap-door spider exists in great numbers. 



W. W. Smith. 



THE MAORI-POLYNESIAN COMPARATIVE 

 DICTIONARY. 



BY EDWARD TREGEAR. 

 Lyon & Blair, Wellington, 1891. 



Carl Abel in one of bis Essays says — " If two or more languages 

 are contrasted, each being previously analysed, this compai'ison of 

 thoroughly prepared materials will have paved the way to realise national 

 peculiarities of thought. As there are hardly any words in any two 

 languages completely representing each other, the amount of conscious 

 knowledge to be gained by the comparison of what exists half uncon- 

 sciously in every land, cannot be overestimated. . . It seems to us, 

 that linguistic science, psychologically conceived, contains a wealth of 

 the most intei'esting and important tasks scarcely dreamt of till now." 



In the book now before us Mr. Tregear has presented to the scientific- 

 world a mine of precious material, much of it new, some till now buried 

 in little known works, all of it interesting. The words of Carl Abel 

 quoted above are fully justified by the results now laid before us of a 

 comparison of Polynesian words and ideas. The Maori student in 

 particular will welcome the opportunity now afforded to him of com- 

 paring the forms and equivalent values of cognate words in the great 

 Polynesian area, and not only does the author extend the facilities for 

 linguistic comparisons, but he now for the first time presents a Compa- 

 rative Mythology of Oceania. This has long been needed and will be 

 warmly welcomed. The thorough way in which the author works may 

 be well seen under the word Haiwaiki— there is in this article alone 

 the material for a volume. See also the hero-god — Wenuku, the story 

 of his eventful life and of his magical powers would furnish the motif 

 for an epic of Homeric interest. Then again the Hina myth is not only 

 a celebrated one in Maori lore but variants, all telling of the doings of 

 Hina "lovely blossom, whose home is in the sky," are found in Hawaii, 

 Manahiki, Samoa, and Mangaia (possibly the original home of Cockneys, 

 as there they persistently drop the letter h). Here also we make the 

 acquaintance of the great Hine-mu-te-po, the goddess of the realm of 

 night, in trying to pass through whose domain, to deliver the souls of 



