GENERAL NOTES. 223 



GENERAL NOTES. 



An Interesting Point in Polynesian Ethnology. — In Dr. A. 

 Lesson's interesting account of the Mangareva or Gambier Archipelago 

 published at Rochefort in 1843, we find a brief description of the flora 

 and fauna of those isles, with the native names added. This is 

 information which is not always supplied by naturalists, though the 

 interest is much increased thereby, especially to those whose studies 

 lead them more towards ethnology than biology. 



Among the birds described by Dr. Lesson as living in this little 

 group — which is situated at the south east end of the Dangerous, Low, 

 or Paumotu Archipelago, — is one which he names a Philedon, the 

 native name of which is Komako. Now the interest to the ethnologist 

 in this case consists in this ; that we have a Philedon in New Zealand 

 (Anthornis melanura,) the native name of which is — amongst others — 

 Komako, better known to the settlers as the Bell Bird, and whose 

 sweet morning notes were at one time heard in every bush in the 

 colony, although now, alas ! it is never heard in the North Island. 

 The species may be- -indeed probably is — not the same in both countries, 

 but the fact remains that the two birds are sufficiently alike to have 

 given rise to a common native name as applied by peoples separated by 

 so great a stretch of ocean as New Zealand and the Gambier Islands, a 

 distance of about 3,500 miles. The question arises, how did these two 

 peoples come to give the same name to the bird 1 Both of them are 

 branches of the great Polynesian race, both speaking a language which 

 in many respects is nearer, the one to the other, than that of people 

 who are their nearer neighbours. It has never been suggested that they 

 ever had direct communication with one another since inhabiting their 

 present homes ; we must therefore conclude that both people knew the 

 bird, or a somewhat similar one, in some place where their ancestors 

 lived together. In Tahiti, we find from R. P. Lesson's "Voyage 

 autour du Monde " in the French exploring vessel " Coquille " that 

 there is a bird there called Omaomao, a word at first sight not much like 

 Komako, but if we remember that the Tahitians have in process of time 

 lost the power of pronouncing the " k," we find that by replacing 

 it, that Omaomao becomes Komakomako, identical with one of the 

 commonest names the Maori has for the Bell Bird. The Tahitian bird 

 however, is not a Philedon, but the Muscicarpa pomarea, a species of 

 flycatcher. The same name is given by Finsch and Hautleb to the 

 Tatare longirostris, a thrush-like bird, also a native of Tahiti. In 

 Samoa we find the Septorius samoensis bearing nearly the same name, 

 viz. : Maomdo, which again, if we supply the " k," missing from the 

 Samoan dialect, becomes Makomako one of the most common of the 

 Maori names for the Bell Bird. The Sfpborius is a honey eater, like 

 our Anthornis. "All this tends to confirm what has been deduced from 

 so many other lines of reasoning, viz. : that the Polynesians spread from 

 Samoa eastward to Tahiti and the Society Islands, and from thence 

 again in many directions, including both that of the Gambier Group 

 and New Zealand. The evidence from the geographical point of view 

 of the Tahitian, or rather Raiatean origin of the Maori will be found in 



