on certain unclean fowls, etc. Neither did they
content themselves with worshipping the said creatures when alive,
but also adored the very skins of them when they were dead and
stuffed with straw."

[Australia.]--Mr. Woodfield records the following touching anecdote
in a paper communicated to the Ethnological Society, as occurring in
an unsettled part of West Australia, where the natives rank as the
lowest race upon the earth:--

"During the summer of 1858-9 the Murchison river was visited by
great numbers of kites, the native country of these birds being
Shark's Bay. As other birds were scarce, we shot many of these kites,
merely for the sake of practice, the natives eagerly devouring them
as fast as they were killed. One day a man and woman, natives of
Shark's Bay, came to the Murchison, and the woman immediately
recognising the birds as coming from her country, assured us that
the natives there never kill them, and that they are so tame that
they will perch on the shoulders of the women and eat from their
hands. On seeing one shot she wept bitterly, and not even the offer
of the bird could assuage her grief, for she absolutely refused to
eat it. No more kites were shot while she remained among us."

The Australian women habitually feed the puppies they intend to rear
from their own breasts, and show an affection to them equal, if not
exceeding, that to their own infants. Sir Charles Nicholson informs
me that he has known an extraordinary passion for cats to be
demonstrated by Australian women at Fort Phillip.

[New Guinea Group.]--Captain Develyn is reported (Bennett,
_Naturalist in Australia_, p. 244) to say of the island of New
Britain, near Australia, that the natives consider cassowaries "to a
certain degree sacred, and rear them as pets. They carry them in their
arms, and entertain a great affection for them."

Professor Huxley informs me that he has seen sucking-pigs nursed at
the breasts of women, apparently as pets, in islands of the New
Guinea Group.

[Polynesia.]--The savage and cannibal Fijians were no exceptions to
the general rule, for Dr. Seemann wrote me word that they make pets
of the flying fox (bat), the lizard, and parroquet. Captain Wilkes,
in his exploring expedition (ii. 122), says the pigeon in the Samoon
islands "is commonly kept as a plaything, and particularly by the
chiefs. One of our officers unfortunately on one occasion shot a
pigeon, which caused great commotion, for the bird w