Mr. 1). A. Mackenzie does himself less than justice in
the titles which he has chosen for his two latest volumes, Myths and Traditions of the South Sea Islands and Myths from Melanesia and Indonesia (Gresham Publishing Company, 12s. 6d. each), and we cannot do him the justice which he merits in the compass of a short notice. We have previously reviewed Mr. Mackenzie's collections of mythology, but in these two volumes he gives not so much the substance of myth, but uses—and legitimately uses—myth and folklore to illustrate his interpretation of Oceanic ethnology. He gives cogent reasons for his belief that these cultures are not primitive, but " decivilized " and decadent, and finds adequate support in the traditions and tales which he cites. He has forged another link in the argument for diffusion, and, following in the footsteps of Elliot Smith and Perry, traces both Egyptian and Asiatic influences on early Oceanic culture. These are two extremely interesting volumes, marred only by two coloured plates, which are needlessly sentimental, but are more than compensated for by a number of excellent photographs.
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