the year, which, as will be shewn below, may be independent of the reckoning of months. About the regulation of the Hawaiian calendar the authorities are not unanimous. Dibble says (p. 108) that the month _welehu_ completed the year, and the new year began with the following month, _makalii_. The year varied between 12 and 13 months. Each month had 30 days; however he adds that in practice the number of days varied between 30 and 29. This is the phenomenon familiar in other places, e. g. in Greece, among the Bataks, etc., in which a round number of 30 days is given to the moon-month, the real length of this being a little more than 29½ days. Fornander (I, 119 ff.) states that this variation, though not common, did occur, but asserts that the year of 360 days was rectified by the intercalation of 5 days at the end of the month _welehu_: these were _tabu_ days, dedicated to the festival of the god Lono. Similarly an old woman of Maui stated that eight months had 30 days and four 31, and that these additional days were called _na mahoe_, ‘the twins’[903]. This statement cannot be correct, since the month was strictly lunar and must have been wholly disarranged by these intercalary days, as is pointed out by the historian of the Sandwich Islands, W. D. Alexander[904]. This writer also remarks that it is a well-established fact that the ancient Hawaiians intercalated a month about every third year, but that the rule governing the intercalation is unknown. Certainly there was no such rule, but the intercalation was empirically treated, and regulated by the appearance of the Pleiades. Such contradictory statements as the above are due to the influence of the European calendar, owing to which the native calendar has early fallen into disuse. Fornander has probably mistaken a feast for intercalary days.