NEW CALEDONIA 
459 
Graucalus, Lalage, Pachycephala, Myzomela, Glyciphila , 
and others, point markedly to a western origin, but on 
the other hand the land-shells differ entirely from those 
of Australia, not a single Helix of the Australian type 
being found. The most abundant genus is Placostylus , 
which is entirely wanting in Australia. 
The natives are a well-made race with frizzly hair, 
dark skins, and pronounced features, distinctly Papuan in 
origin, though now much intermixed with Polynesians. 
They are divided into numerous tribes under chiefs, and 
the various tribes are bound together by alliance into 
two main bodies, after a system similar to that mentioned 
as existing in the Aru Islands. They pierce and distend 
the ear lobes, wear the scantiest possible clothing, are 
great lovers of dances, and have large images sculptured 
in wood in every village. They are firm believers in 
forest-haunting demons, and until the advent of the 
French were all anthropophagists. In these and other 
characteristics the influence of their Papuan ancestry is 
plainly to be traced. In other respects they do not show 
this influence. Thus the houses are circular, well and 
strongly built, and with a high extinguisher-like conical 
roof, surmounted by an elaborately carved finial, which 
varies in the chiefs’ houses according to their rank. The 
heads of the children are often artificially malformed, and 
the use of the how and arrow is unknown in warfare. 
Constantly engaged in intertribal fights, the people are far 
from contemptible opponents, and offered a brave resist¬ 
ance to the French. In the art of agriculture they are 
superior to every other race of the Pacific, building 
elaborate aqueducts and irrigating their land with almost 
as much skill and care as the Balinese. The languages, 
which are numerous, do not appear to differ from each 
other so much as in the other Melanesian islands. A 
