REPORT ON THE HUMAN CRANIA. 
99 
highest part of the skull was about midway between the bregma and obelion, and the height 
from the plane of the foramen magnum to the summit was 5 *4 inches. The antero- 
posterior diameter of the temporal fossa w r as 117 mm., being materially below that of the 
Erromangans or Loyalty Islanders. The measurements are given in Table XVII. ; C.I. 
7 5 ‘4, Y.I. 81. Prognathism was very marked and the palato-maxillary region was one of 
the longest that I have measured. Traces of the frontal suture extended through the gla- 
bella into the ophryon. A large epipteric bone existed on each side ; Wormian bones were 
in the lambdoidal suture, and a suture passed from the infraorbital foramen into the floor 
of the orbit. The antero-posterior and transverse diameters of the foramen magnum were 
equal. The lower jaw had a wide ramus, a broad-based coronoid process, and a shallow 
sigmoid notch. From Prof. Flower’s description and figures it is evident that the artificial 
flattening of the head in the Mallicollese is not limited to the frontal region, but that in 
some cases pressure is applied to the back of the head. This is corroborated by the 
specimen I have now described. 
The Fiji Archipelago forms the north-eastern group of islands of the Melanesian region. 
They are inhabited by a race possessing well-marked Papuan characters, but colonies of the 
brown Polynesians from Samoa and Tonga have established themselves in many of these 
islands, especially on the sea-coast. 1 The best collections of skulls from Fiji are in the 
Glodeffroy Museum, which possesses seventy-four crania ; the Museum of the Royal 
College of Surgeons, with twenty-four specimens ; the Natural History Museum in Paris, 
with fifteen specimens ; and the Barnard Davis collection, with ten specimens. Other 
museums also contain individual crania. 
A skull of brachycepkalic proportions, cephalic index 84*2, from the Fijian island 
Moutouata is in the Army Museum of the United States. 2 A few mesaticephalic crania 
from the islands Mango, Yanua Balavu, Yakaia, Moturiki, Kandavu, Dzizia, and Ovalau, 
varying in their cephalic indices from 75 T to 79 '2, have been recorded by Barnard Davis, 
Flower, Krause, de Quatrefages with ILamy and Rabl-Riickhard ; but skulls of these pro- 
portions are quite exceptional. The great majority of the Fijian skulls wdiich have been 
measured are dolichocephalic, and as a rule so long and narrow that the term steno- 
cephalic has been applied to them. A most careful description, with figures, of a series 
of sixteen crania of the Kai Colos, or natives of the mountains of the interior of Yiti- 
Levu, has been given by Prof. Flower. 3 The breadth index was in each skull below 70, 
and the height index in each specimen was markedly above that of the breadth. 
Dr. Krause gives the following numbers as the mean measures of the skulls in the 
Godeffroy Museum obtained from the following islands : — Yiti-Levu, C.I. 6 7'6, Y.I. 75'1 ; 
Moturiki, C.I. 68'8, Y.I. 75' 2; Ovalau, C.I. 69T, V.I. 76T. The people of Mango 
1 Die Inseln des stillen Oceans, by Prof. Meinicke ; also Wallace’s Australasia. 
2 Referred to by de Quatrefages and Hamy, p. 291. 
3 Cranial Characters of Natives of Fiji Islands, Journ. Antlirop. Inst., vol. x., November 1880. 
