occasion, when her husband, doubtless actuated by proper paternal pride and feeling, approached his wife in order to see how domestic matters were going on, she has, to use the keeper's words, shouldered him away with one of her great coils, showing plainly that by thus giving him the cold shoulder she prefers performing her maternal duties unassisted. Once, and once only, has the keeper seen her absent from her interesting incubatory operation; and then, before he could get round to the back of the cage to have a better view of the eggs, she was on them again. In fact, she much resembles an old hen with a brood, puffed up by maternal pride and conceit, and is in a highly excitable condition;-spiteful, too, according to the keeper, for she has struck more than once at objects outside the glass which have irritated her. Though she does not eat, she drinks freely but as water is near her, she is not obliged to leave her eggs to assuage thirst.

Having communicated these interesting particulars, the keeper kindly went round to the back of the cage, opened the door and removed the blanket cautiously. There, true enough, in direct opposition to the non-hatching theory, was the mighty pythoness in great coils

:

"Fold above fold, a surgy maze, her head
Crested aloft,"

—not a whit attenuated by her long fast, while beneath the lowest coil were bunches of eggs, some plainly visible between the folds of the coil, others, as the keeper said, being only partially seen in consequence of their being overlaid by the serpent's body. Some of the eggs were of a dirty-green white, decomposition having probably taken place a supposition strengthened by the odour emanating from them, and also from the serpent. The removal of the blanket, though effected most quietly, immediately excited the pythoness. Her head, which was lying on the topmost coil, in the best position for observation was suddenly raised; she became restless, darted out her long quivering tongue with great rapidity, and would have struck the keeper had he not re-covered her with the blanket and put an end to her irritation.

It will be interesting to watch the result. A few lively baby pythons would undoubtedly be an important addition to the attraction of these unrivalled Gardens during the ensuing season. We trust, however, that, apart from this financial consideration, the Society will take care that the pythoness shall be carefully and closely observed while she is incubating.

MICRONESIA-of the Pacific Ocean.

[The numerous small coral islands scattered over a considerable portion of the great Pacific Ocean have found an able historian in the Rev. L. H. Gulick, M.D. A series of lectures relating to their history, resources, and their present condition in respect of natives, has been given by this gentleman at Honolulu, and we propose to give them to our readers in some few of our consecutive numbers, forming as they do the best account of an interesting but little known portion of the distant part of the ocean in which they are situated.—ÉD.]

Micronesia is a portion of that part of the world's surface which was first called the Third World, and which is now generally known as Oceanica.

In the progress of geographical and ethnological knowledge Oceanica has been divided into five districts: Polynesia, to the East, comprehending the Sandwich, Marquesas, Society, Hervey, Friendly, New Zealand, and Samoan Groups; Melanesia, to the South, including the Fiji, New Hebrides, and Solomon Archipelagoes, with New Guinea, inhabited, as the name indicates, by black races; Australasia, to the South of Melanesia, including New Holland (Australia) and its dependencies; then to the West Malaisia, inhabited principally by the Malay races, which embraces the East Indian Islands; and finally, and centrally, Micronesia, fitly termed, for it is the region of small islands.

Micronesia extends from long. 130° to 180° E. from Greenwich,

NO. 4.-VOL. XXXI.

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and from lat. 3° S. to 21° or 22° N., excepting only the S.W. corner of the parallelogram, trenched upon by the Melanesian Islands.

Four large archipelagoes embrace nearly every island of Micronesia. In the S.E. corner of the Micronesian parallelogram lies a chain of fifteen low atolls, extending through seven degrees of latitude both North and South of the equator, and called the Gilbert (improperly Kingsmill) Islands. This group sustains a population speaking one language, and numbering between 40,000 and 50,000.

A little to the N.W. of the Gilbert Islands lie the thirty atolls of the Marshall Archipelago, extending as far North as lat. 120. They lie in two chains of fifteen atolls each, running in a N.W. and S.E. direction, the eastern chain being the Ratak, and the western the Ralik Islands. The Ratak and Ralik islanders speak nearly the same language, and number together perhaps 10,000.

The Caroline Islands stretch from long. 130° E. to 165° E., the greater number of them being found between the parallels 5° and 9° N. There are forty-eight islands of this archipelago, forty-three of which are low coraline, and five are basaltic, with a large coral element about them. This range of islands sustains perhaps 25,000 people. Many different dialects are spoken on its widely separated islands, though they are evidently dialects of the same mother tongue, and are strongly allied to the Marshall Islands dialect, and even to the language spoken on the Gilbert Islands.

The Ladrone Islands are all basaltic, about sixteen in number, and some of them very small. The chain runs nearly North and South, between the meridians 145° and 147° E., and from lat. 14° to 21° N. The most southern island, as also the largest and the best known, is Guam, probably more properly called Guahan. Guam and Seypan are at present the only inhabited islands of the group, numbering perhaps 4,000 souls, who are, however, the descendants of Spanish and Philippine Islands' ancestry, mingled with native blood.

The Ladrone Group-was the earliest discovery of the civilized world in Micronesia, and indeed in the Pacific Ocean. Magalhaens (Magellan) came upon the islands of Zinian and Seypan March 6th, 1521, on the first voyage across the Pacific. His crew spoke of the discovery as "the islands of the lateen sail," it having been the first view they had of this triangular sail, so universal through Micronesia and all Polynesia. Magalhaens named the people "Ladrones" (robbers), from their thievish propensities, though these were no greater than on most islands, and the Roman missionary, Le Gobien, informs us that they abhorred thieving! The same credible historian of these islands informs us that they did not know what fire was!

They are reported as having been very numerous when discovered. The figures vary greatly, from 73,000 to 300,000. Here were first seen those gigantic proas, that then, as now in the Marshall and western Caroline Islands, made marvellous voyages, sailing with great rapidity and very close to the wind. Their houses were large and high, divided into apartments, "the whole raised a story from the earth and supported upon pillars of stone. Besides these dwelling

houses they had others for their canoes, built likewise on large pillars of stone, one of which was capable of holding four of the largest canoes. This account is fully confirmed by the massive and almost colossal remains of buildings which have been formed in the islands of Tinian and Rota.”—Prichard's Researches.

The people were mild, mercurial, licentious. They preserved and adored the bones of their ancestors, as many Micronesian people do to this day, while all of them worship the spirits of their ancestors. The historians speak of three castes among them, the nobles, the half nobles or sons of the nobles, and the plebians, and these classes are to this day preserved throughout the greater number of the Marshall and Caroline Islands.

The descriptions given of their physical appearance shows them allied to Micronesians of the present day, particularly to the Caroline Islanders. No accessible portions of their language have been published, but it is said to have had many relations to the Tagala dialect of the Philippine Islands, to which all the Micronesian and Polynesian dialects have a palpable correspondence.

These islands produced originally, it is said, rice, maize, cocoanut, areca nut, the cyca, dogdog, rima; and since then the orange, citron, mango, guava, and grape have been introduced, together with the stag, hog, goat, horse, ass, cat, dog, and fowls.

The Ladrone Islands were frequently touched at by the Spanish navigators as they crossed the Pacific in the N.E. trade wind zone from New Spain, as it was then called, or Mexico, to their possessions in the East Indies. In 1564 Legapi formally proclaimed possession on behalf of Spain, though no active steps were taken towards rendering it effective till more than a century later.

In 1663 two independent movements were made towards evangelizing the islanders of the Pacific. A priest, named Jean Paulmier, in that year published "Memoires relative to the establishment of a Christian mission in the Third World, otherwise called the South Land." He himself was the descendant of a native, probably of Madagascar, named Essemoric, who, in 1504, was taken to France, and there married into the family of De Gonneville, the commander of the expedition. In the same year Diego Luis de Sanvitores addressed Philip IV of Spain regarding the more specific idea of a mission to the Ladrones, concerning which his mind was excited by having touched there in 1662. Philip IV favoured the proposition, and on his death, in 1665, his widow, Maria Anna of Austria, carried it into effect, and consequently the group was called the Marian Islands.

In June, 1668, Sanvitores, with five other fathers and several lay assistants, arrived at Guaham from the Philippines by the way of New Spain. They were received with great friendship by the natives. The next year 13,000 islanders were reported as baptized. The same year a zealous lay convert from Malabar, who had been wrecked there in 1638, was killed by the natives, showing the rapid rise of their animosities. Le Gobien, the historian of the mission, whose history

is brought down to 1695, reports many miraculous occurrences connected particularly with Sanvitores. They were not, however, sufficient to subdue the natives' rising fear of being dispossessed of their homes and of the faith of their fathers. In 1670 Sanvitores was obliged to resort to the force of arms in propagating the faith on some of the northern islands. The same year Father Medina was killed, for forcibly or stealthily baptizing infants on Seypan; a riot broke out on Guaham, and many were killed. Two forts were built, and it appears there were thirty-two troops to defend them. War raged forty days, and peace was made on condition that the natives came to Sunday services, observed the festivals of the church, and received Christian instruction. In 1672 Father Sanvitores himself was killed by a man, enraged that he should have baptized his infant stealthily and against his long known desires. Le Gobien reports 50,000 as baptized by the martyred father. Two hundred troops were soon after sent from the Philippines, and still others five or six years after, who were employed in quelling the various revolts of the people.

In 1680 Quiroga became governor, a man of great energy and zeal, who had served with honour in the wars in Flanders-a most ominous fact for the natives. This governor continued in power, with one or two slight interregnums, as late as 1695, when, according to Le Gobien, the work was finished, and no opposition remained.

The natives, it need scarce be said, were, according to Le Gobien, reduced by Quiroga's military power. By 1695 they were so reduced and subdued that they were all removed to the two islands of Seypan and Guaham. Many, it is said by others, committed suicide from despair, and many fled southward to the Caroline Islands, where they spread such reports of the white man's cruelties that communication between the two archipelagoes ceased, till in our own century it was again renewed.

An epidemic or two attacked the depressed remnant of the people soon after the commencement of the eighteenth century, and in 1710 it is reported there were only 3,539 left of that race who, forty years before, were so numerous and flourishing. In 1722 the English Clipperton reported the population as only 1,985.

Commodore Anson visited Tinian in 1742, and found not a solitary permanent inhabitant where there had been, it is said, 30,000. Kotzebue visited Guam in 1817, where he found a population of 5,386, only one family of which was of pure blood. Freycinet more thoroughly explored the group, in 1819, than it had ever before been. He gives in his voyage a detailed and elaborate account of the group. Since then, in 1828 and in 1839, D'Urville visited Guain, of which he gives graphic sketches.

The governor of Guam is in subordination to the governor of the Philippine Islands, His general policy is not to encourage much intercourse with the foreign world, though whalers have gone there in considerable numbers within a few years. In 1855 or 1856 the small pox raged there, and swept off many.