The same will be found to hold good to a large extent if we turn to those social regulations which have been embodied in our laws. It is only in the case of the transmission of hereditary rank and of the property of a person dying intestate that more distant relatives are brought into any legal relationship with one another, and then only if there is an absence of nearer relatives. It is only when forced to do so by exceptional circumstances that the law recognises any of the persons to whom the more classificatory of our terms of relationship apply. If we pay regard to the social functions associated with relationship, it is our own system, rather than the classificatory, which is open to the reproach that its relationships carry into them no rights and duties. In the course of the recent work of the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition in Melanesia and Polynesia I have been able to collect a body of facts which bring out, even more clearly than has hitherto been recognised, the dependence of classificatory terms on social rights.[6] The classificatory systems of Oceania vary greatly in character. In some places relationships are definitely distinguished in nomenclature which are classed with other relationships elsewhere. Thus, while most Melanesian and some Polynesian systems have a definite term for the mother’s brother and for the class of relatives whom the mother calls brother, in other systems this relative is classed with, and is denoted by, the same term as the father. The point to which I now call your attention is that there is a very close correlation between the presence of a special term for this relative and the presence of special functions attached to the relationship. [6] The full account of these and other facts cited in these lectures will appear shortly in a work on _The History of Melanesian Society_, to be published by the Cambridge University Press. In Polynesia, both the Hawaiians and the inhabitants of Niue class the mother’s brother with the father, and in neither place was I able to discover that there were any special duties, privileges or restrictions ascribed to the mother’s brother. In the Polynesian islands of Tonga and Tikopia, on the other hand, where there are special terms for the mother’s brother, this relative has also special functions. The only place in Melanesia where I failed to find a special term for the mother’s brother was in the western Solomon Islands, and that was also the only part of Melanesia where I failed to find any trace of special social functions ascribed to this relative. I do not know of such functions in Santa Cruz, but my information about the system of that island is derived from others, and further research will almost certainly show that they are present.