and older branch of the Polynesian race long resident in New-Zealand. These people, or some of them, were Morioris, akin to those first found in the Chatham Islands. These large birds were already known by the name of “moa,” the same name by which the ancestors of the Polynesian had known the cassowary and emu in other lands.

In some of “the islands” Gallus domesticus is called “moa,” while at other places its name is “toa,” but whether the two words are variants one of the other I find no evidence. “Toa” is also a warrior or fighting-man, and, as fighting is one of the chief characteristics of the domestic cook, the name may be considered applicable to that bird; but this may be a more coincidence.

In Maori language we have the verbal form whaka toa moa, “to perform a derisive dance in presence of the enemy.” The literal translation of this is “to make to do, the warrior of the moa,” or “to do as the dancing moa,” for “toa” also means “to romp or gambol.”

I have somewhere read of the ostrich at times indulging in a kind of dance with one or more of its companions, but forget my authority for this statement. At the same time we must allow that the domestic cook makes considerable demonstration on approaching an antagonist, such as advancing sideways and every now and again picking up imaginary food or pebbles, bits of stick or straw, and what in colonial expression is “putting on side” and “bounce.” But this can hardly be considered as any kind of dance. At many islands—Samoa, for instance—the word “toa” is a fowl,^* but it also means the ironwood-tree (Casuarina equisetifolia). Why the fowl and the tree should be of the one name is remarkable, and worthy of consideration.

Some thirty years ago I went over to Australia to hunt up a witness in a law case. When travelling in that country I was greatly struck by the beautiful and extremely graceful habit of growth in the so-called “she-oak” (Casuarina). This tree had nothing resembling the leaves of ordinary trees, but long, thin, flexible, succulent, drooping, twig-like foliage, which at once recalled to memory the long streamers of the water-weed which I knew years ago in England's streams by the name of “mares' tails.” The foliage of the Australian “she-oak” gives a more even and graceful rounded droop than that of our weeping willow, which is such a striking feature in the “improved” landscape of our adopted country. In Australia

I also saw a tree of the same species called the “he-oak.” This was of fastigiate habit, and without the graceful outline of the “she-oak.”

On reading the diary of Sir Joseph Banks, who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage, I saw mention of the tree “toa,” and took notice of its scientific name of Casuarina equisetifolia, and saw an apparent connection between the names “Casuarius,” the bird cassowary, and “Casuarina,” the tree.

When we note the exquisite slender droop of the foliage of the “she-oak” and then compare with it the rounded flexible droop of the plumage of the emu, especially when the head and neck of the bird is hidden or stooped in feeding, the resemblance between the bird and the tree is apparent.

I am told that the word “casuarina” was adopted most probably by the Dutch as the scientific cognomen of these trees in the eighteenth century; and I firmly believe that when the Dutch (or those who first named the tree) thus took their cue from the natives of the country where both the bird and the tree were found the natives had previously named the bird and the tree as somewhat resembling each other.

“Cassowary” is said to be a corruption of “suwarri,” and this word should be searched for among the peoples of the Malay Archipelago by those interested in this study.

One of the members of our Institute has kindly supplied me with the following extract from Webster's “International Dictionary,” 1894:—

“Casuarina.—[Supposed to be named from the resemblance of the twigs to the feathers of the cassowary, of the genus Casuarius.] (Bot.) A genus of leafless trees or shrubs, with drooping branchlets of a rushlike appearance, mostly natives of Australia. Some of them are large, producing hard and heavy timber of excellent quality, called ‘beefwood’ from its colour.”

Sir Joseph Banks tells us that at various islands visited by him the “e-toa” (or, as he writes it, making the article e—Maori he—a part of the name “etoa”) is the tree from which the natives make their fighting weapons—clubs, pikes, spears, &c.—and also the peculiar beater used by the women in making tappa clothing.

The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill also gives numerous instances of the usefulness and durability of its wood and of the gracefulness of the tree itself; but as no reference is made to the pendulous habit seen in the “she-oak” I feel certain that C. equisetifolia is of an upright growth. Still, in Borneo or Papua, which are nearer to the mainland of Australia, the “she-oak” may likely be found, and there we find the cassowary