Note 101 — Chapter V
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W. Ellis, op. cit. i. 329 sq. As to the worship of birds, Captain Cook says: "This island [Tahiti] indeed, and the rest that lie near it, have a particular bird, some a heron and others a king's fisher, to which they pay a peculiar regard, and concerning which they have some superstitious notions with respect to good and bad fortune, as we have of the swallow and robin-redbreast, giving them the name of eatua, and by no means killing or molesting them; yet they never address a petition to them, or approach them with any act of adoration." See J. Cook, Voyages, i. 224.