REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
95 
the Polynesians than those of the Papuans, and they refer to a tradition that some genera- 
tions ago a small colony of Polynesians settled there. 
The Loyalty Islands lie a little to the west of New Caledonia. They are for the 
most part inhabited by Melanesians, though Polynesians have settled there. The Kev. 
G. Turner says that the people resemble the Fijians. Four crania from the island Mare 
occur in museums — a female in the Barnard Davis collection, a female in the Museum 
of the Anthropological Society of Paris, and a male adult and a child in the Anatomical 
Museum of the University of Edinburgh. 1 These skulls are all markedly dolichocephalic, 
the mean breadth index is 69, and this dolichocephalic character is quite as strong in the 
child's skull as in those of the adults. In all the specimens the vertical index was very 
decidedly above the cephalic. 
As no male skull from Mare has yet been described, I shall state briefly the chief 
characters of my specimen. Its length, narrowness, and relative height are well seen from 
the measures in Table XVII. The temporal fossa was remarkably elongated, its antero- 
posterior diameter being 138 mm., and its vertical diameter 88 mm.; this was largely due 
to the great antero-posterior growth of the parietal bone, the longitudinal arc of which 
was 150 mm., and even in the child's skull the corresponding arc of that bone was 142 
mm. The gnathic index was 103, or just within the prognathic group. The nasal index 
was mesorhine, the orbital index mesoseme, and the palato-maxillary index dolichuranic. 
The antero-posterior diameter of the ascending ramus of the lower jaw was very marked, 
and that of its coronoid process was equally so, obviously in correlation with the great 
breadth of the temporal muscle. The sigmoid notch was relatively shallow, and there 
was no disproportion between the coronoid and condyloid height : the chin was almost 
vertical ; the gonio-symphysial length considerably exceeded the intergonial width. 
Each pterion had a large epipteric bone : small Wormians were in the lambdoidal suture. 
Indications of an infraorbital suture were on the left side, and the remains of the frontal 
suture were seen in the glabella. 
Many more crania have been obtained from Lifu : two are in the Barnard Davis 
collection, four in that of the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons, and twenty-nine 
in museums in Caen and Paris. The mean measurements of these twenty-nine skulls 
are given by MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy in their twenty- seventh table. The mean 
breadth index of eighteen males is 69*8, the height index 73"5 ; the breadth index of 
eleven females is 71*8, the height index 74*5. As the measurements of individual 
skulls are not given, one cannot gather what the maximum indices were in this series, but 
from Prof. Flower's measurements of the skulls in the Royal College of Surgeons it is clear 
that Lifu crania may attain a breadth index approaching the brachycephalic, two adults 
being respectively 78 - 3 and 78'9, and a child 80*6. Ouvea is said to have been colonised 
1 I am indebted for these specimens to my friend Dr. J. 0. Cox of Sydney. Their measurements are recorded in 
Table XVII. 
