124 The Commercial Products of the Sea. 



great exactness the time of their appearance, which is 

 looked forward to with great interest. The worms are 

 caught in small baskets, beautifully made, and when taken 

 on shore are tied up in leaves in small bundles, and 

 baked. Great quantities are eaten undressed, but either 

 dressed or undressed they are esteemed a great delicacy. 

 Such is the desire to eat ' palolo ' by all classes, that im- 

 mediately the fishing parties reach the shore, messengers 

 are despatched in all directions with large quantities to 

 parts of the island on which none appear." 



The great antiquity of the name for this worm amongst 

 the South Sea Islanders (Balolo and Palolo) is attested by 

 the fact that the parts of the year most nearly corre- 

 sponding with our months of October and November, are 

 respectively named " Vula i Balolo lailai ' (little), and 

 " Vula i Balolo leva " (large) ; the latter, as its name im- 

 plies, is distinguished by the appearance of the "balolo " in 

 such vast numbers that it is collected by the natives as a 

 dainty article of food, and is so much prized that formal 

 presents of it are frequently sent considerable distances 

 into the interior, from certain chiefs resident on the coast, 

 to others whose dominions do not happen to be favoured 

 by the annual visit of the " balolo." 



Dr. Seemann, in his " Mission to Viti," gives us the 

 following extract of a letter from a lady in Fiji to her 

 friends in England : " In November we all went for a 

 few days to Wakaya, about 10 miles east-north-east from 

 Ovalau, in order to see the balolos, which rise out of the 

 reefs just before daylight, at first in small numbers, but 

 about sunrise in such masses that the sea looks more solid 

 than liquid. As they were to appear on the morning of 

 the 25th, we retired to rest at an early hour the night 

 before, and rose with the moon about one o'clock in the 



