re are the largest in the world, but the specimens
planted in other islands do not appear to maintain their abnormal size.
The island is further remarkable from the fact that the Megapodius, or
Scrub hen, is plentiful there, and nowhere else in the Pacific further
east than the New Hebrides. The natives have no traditions of its
introduction. The eggs have been prized as a delicacy in Tonga for
centuries, and are exported thither by every canoe going southward during
the breeding season. It is said that they are sometimes hatched
artificially, but the young _malao_ does not take kindly to the bush in
Tonga, although the vegetation is much the same. Why should the bird be
found in Polynesia, having skipped all the intermediate islands of
Melanesia? To what story of the migration of races is it the only clue?

[63-1] Niuatobutabu, like Niuafoou, subject to the King of Tonga.

[63-2] Uea, discovered by Wallis in 1767, and visited by Maurelle on
April 22nd, 1781. It has 3000 inhabitants who are said by the French
missionaries to be increasing. Uea is nominally independent under its own
queen, but the French priests wield the real power in so spirited a
fashion that the natives frequently attempt to escape from the island as
stowaways.

[64-1] Mourning for the death of a chief or near relation.

[65-1] This confirms the story of Kau Moala, a Tongan navigator, who
returned to his native land in 1807 and related his adventures to
Mariner. He had visited Futuna, Rotuma and Fiji in a double canoe, and,
in describing Rotuma, he related the legend of two giants who had
migrated from Tonga to Rotuma in legendary times. He was shown gigantic
bones in proof of the story, the bones, no doubt, of some marine monster.
Mention is made of Rotuma in a Tongan saga of the early sixteenth
century, and there can be no doubt that there was occasional intercourse
between these distant islands during the period when the Tongans were the
Norsemen of the Pacific.

Kau Moala heard nothing of Edwards' visit, though he brought news of the
visit of a ship to Futuna, and of an ineffectual attempt to take
her--perhaps the visit of Schouten, whose account of the affray tallies
closely with theirs even to the killing of six natives. The tradition was
still fresh after 190 years. Edwards' visit, having brought no disasters
on the natives, escaped the attention of the native poets and was
forgotten.

[67-1] Native name Fataka. The Russian Captain Krout