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PACIFIC SCIENCE, Vol. XIV, July I960 
orbital processes are roundly convex and blunt. 
The muzzle is short and rounded, and the palate 
short and broad. The posterior margin of the 
palate is in line with the hinder portion of the 
last molar tooth.” He gives in detail the cranial 
measurements of the two specimens. One, that 
of a young animal found in Nuololo Valley, 
Kauai, as a separate burial bundle in the general 
wrappings of a child, is in the Bishop Museum. 
Unstated is the present location of the second 
specimen, that of an adult dog from a burial 
cave at Nuololo Flat, Kauai. Both specimens 
were found wrapped in tapa. 
Without citing a source, Wood-Jones also 
describes the appearance of the native Hawaiian 
dog. Probably he used Fitzinger, Ellis, King, 
and local Hawaiian informants for some of his 
account. The statement that one foreleg was 
commonly more bent than the other has not 
previously been recorded. Wood-Jones states: 
In general, however, we know that it was a 
long-bodied, short-legged dog of the short-haired 
terrier type. In general build it has been likened 
to the dachshund but, unlike this breed, its 
large ears were held erect. The tail was carried 
with an upward curve and the coat color ap- 
pears to have been varied; but white and pale 
yellow are said to have been predominant. The 
fore limbs are described as being bandy, and it 
is said that very commonly one leg was markedly 
more bent than the other. Although the pure 
breed has ceased to exist in the islands of the 
Hawaiian group, there is abundant evidence of 
the persistence of its blood in the large number 
of long-bodied, short bandy-legged mongrels to 
be met with even around Honolulu. At times 
it would seem that the combination of char- 
acters, said by the old Hawaiians to be typical 
of the poi dog, is very faithfully reproduced 
in dogs of extremely mixed ancestry. It is by no 
means uncommon in Hawaiian villages to meet 
with these long, low dogs that have an un- 
familiar appearance in consequence of their 
large erect ears. 
The most recent study of the Hawaiian native 
dog, an examination of its teeth for caries, has 
been done by Dr. Arthur Svihla (1957), who 
is extending the study to visit museums in 
Polynesia to examine teeth thought to be de- 
rived from native dogs. The Hawaiian canine 
skulls and lower jaws that he examined came 
from archeological sites on Oahu and Hawaii. 
Skeletons of dogs are especially numerous in 
caves of refuge because women and children 
who sheltered in them took live pigs and dogs 
to provide part of their food. Dr. Svihla, who 
finds dental caries markedly prevalent in the 
teeth of these dogs, attributes the decay to the 
diet which was heavily weighted with starches 
and sugars. Food tabus, especially as relates to 
meat, had affected the women and the com- 
moners who, although the caretakers of the pigs 
and dogs, were forbidden to eat them and fed 
them the staple vegetables of their own diet. 
Teeth of modern dog skulls in Bishop Museum 
have no caries, Dr. Svihla reports. He suggests 
that it is probably because the Hawaiian diet 
changed to include more protein after European 
contact and the abandonment of tabus. The diet 
of the dogs improved with that of their care- 
takers. 
These studies by Wood-Jones and Svihla pro- 
vide some support for the theories of the For- 
sters, King, Ellis, and others that the predomi- 
nantly vegetable diet of the Polynesian dogs 
had caused some of the peculiarities of their 
appearance and behavior. 
CONCLUSION 
This paper has surveyed the literature on the 
taxonomy of the Polynesian native dogs. The 
source material of taxonomists has been de- 
rived, often at second- and third-hand, from 
impressionistic descriptions by members of 
the expeditions of Captain Cook and other 
eighteenth-century explorers, none of whom give 
a single measurement or apparently preserved 
a specimen for scientific study. Information from 
later centuries is open to doubt because inter- 
breeding between native and introduced dogs 
began with the arrival of the first European ships 
with pet dogs aboard. No numerical data exist 
on the native dogs of the Society Islands and 
the Tuamotus. No measurements existed of Ha- 
waiian native dogs until the twentieth century 
when, using archeological material presumed to 
be of pre-European age, Wood-Jones studied 
two crania and Svihla examined teeth for caries. 
No measurements were made on New Zealand 
dogs until the nineteenth century, by which 
time the identification of any living dogs as 
