few subjects only. Everyone knows how an illiterate herdsman will recall at once every little peculiarity of each member of a large herd entrusted to his care, though, at first sight, scarcely anything would seem more difficult in individualizing than the ordinary sheep of a large flock. Again, in all the early and rude states of society, abundant songs and tales of the people are found to have been invariably preserved by the people, ages before any form of writing had been invented: while, we know that, in highly civilized India, where letters were, practically, unknown, even three centuries before the Christian era, the whole of the Sanskrit Vědas, as well as many of the most important commentaries on them, were preserved in the memories of members of the different Brahmanic colleges, whose pride was enlisted in the accurate recollection of the most minute modifications of the sounds and letters of individual words. To maintain the absolute invariabity of these Hymns was the business of their life; and their memories were not distracted by attention to anything else. In the case of the New Zealander, while the demands on his powers of memory were infinitely less, we have reason to believe that his Tohungas, or priests, continued constantly repeating these legends, one from the other, and, no doubt, generally, in the same words. * It is mentioned, I think, by Mr. Ellis, that the native chiefs of the Sandwich Islands have preserved the names of their kings from father to son for a hundred successions—which is by no means improbable as it is the most important, if not the only thing they would care to record. It is not necessary to take these tales for more than they are worth, nor do I wish to claim for them a solid historical basis; but I have as much confidence in them as in the early legends of Greece and Rome, some of which, especially in the case of Rome, are now seen to have had a far more real foundation, than the sceptical historians of the early part of this century were willing to admit. There is nothing, indeed, in the nature of the case, against the probability, that the Maori stories do rest on ultimate facts. Many circumstances, and not the least of these, the admitted fact that the New Zealand chiefs (as was the case, also, in other islands) were, even in life, held to have a quasi-superhuman character, have thrown their mythology into inextricable confusion; but, even, allowing the probability that, as suggested before, some local colourings may have been engrafted on the answers given to the first questions propounded to the Maoris by the missionaries or early settlers, † There is a constant tendency, especially, among uneducated but shrewd savages to give that answer to any question which they think the enquirer would like to have. An Eastern or an Irish peasant illustrates, as well as any one else, this remark. Archdeacon Maunsell has further shown that, in Maori, this practice is, as it were, reduced to a system. “In answering a question,” he says, “the answer will always be regulated by the way in which the question is put, i.e. “Kahore i pai? Ae.” “Was he not willing? Yes,”—i.e. “Yes. He was not willing.” If the answer was intended to be affirmative, the speaker would have said, “I pai ano.” (Maunsell, N.Z. Gr. p. 167.) it does not follow that there was no