Next, if we take Melanesian and Polynesian systems as a whole, we find that they do not fall into two sharply marked-off groups, but that there are any number of intermediate gradations between the two. It would be possible to arrange the classificatory systems of Oceania in a series in which it would not be possible to draw the line at any point between the different varieties of system which the two ends of the series seem to represent. The question arises whether it is possible to find any other series of transitions in Oceania which runs parallel with the series connecting the two varieties of system of relationship. There is no doubt but that this question can be answered in the affirmative. Speaking broadly, there are two main varieties of social organisation in Oceania, with an infinite number of intermediate conditions. In one variety marriage is regulated by some kind of clan-exogamy, including under the term “clan” the moieties of a dual organisation; in the other variety marriage is regulated by kinship or genealogical relationship. We know of no part of Melanesia where marriage is regulated solely by clan-exogamy, but it is possible to arrange Melanesian and Polynesian societies in a series according to the different degrees in which the principles of genealogical relationship is the determining factor in the regulation of marriage. At one end of the series we should have places like the Banks Islands, the northern New Hebrides and the Santa Cruz Islands, where the clan-organisation is so obviously important that it was the only mechanism for the regulation of marriage which was recognised even by so skilful an observer as Dr. Codrington. At the other end of the series we have places such as the Hawaiian Islands and Eddystone Island in the western Solomons, where only the barest traces of a clan-organisation are to be found and where marriage is regulated solely by genealogical relationship. Between the two are numerous intermediate cases, and the series so formed runs so closely parallel to that representing the transitions between different forms of the classificatory system that it seems out of the question but that there should be a relation between the two. Of all the places where I have myself worked, the two in which I failed to find any trace of the regulation of marriage by means of a clan-organisation were the Hawaiian Islands and Eddystone Island, and the systems of both places were lacking in just those distinctions the absence of which characterised the Malayan system of Morgan. Only in one point did the Eddystone system differ from the Hawaiian. Though the mother’s brother was classed in nomenclature with the father, there was a term for the sister’s son, but it was so little used that in a superficial survey it would have escaped notice. Its use was so exceptional that many of the islanders were doubtful about its proper meaning. In other parts of the