1ST DISTRICT.2ND. DO.3RD DO.4TH DO.
Under eighteen706309372685
Above eighteen2,2291,0431,1782,134
Total2,9351,3521,5502,819

"Here," Sir G. Simpson continues, "is an average of one person under eighteen, to rather more than three persons above it—a state of things which would carry depopulation written on its very face, unless every creature, without exception, were to attain the good old age of seventy-five." To this we add a remark upon the bearing of the early period of marriages throughout Polynesia. Not one—but two—generations are included in the population under eighteen years; since before that time boys and girls have begun to have boys and girls of their own.

This disproportion accounts for the decrease. But what accounts for the disproportion?

In 1824, Mr. Stuart wrote that—"in those parts of the islands where the influence of the mission had not extended, two-thirds of the infants born perish by the hands of their own parents before attaining the first or second year of their age."

In 1840, there were found in Kanai out of 5,541 adults, only sixty-eight, and sixty-five women who had more than two children each, and that with a bounty, in the shape of an exemption from certain taxes, upon a number to that amount; whilst in Woahoo the births were sixty-one, the deaths one hundred and thirty-two.

Distant though it be, the Tahitian group is the nearest point to—

NEW ZEALAND.

Native name of northern island.—Ikana, Mawi.

Native name of southern island.—Tavai, Punamu.

Native name of the language.—Maori.