1S39.] ZOOLOGY AND FRUITS. 213 



the bat, which is very destructive to the bread-fruit. Cattle 

 have been introduced by the missionaries, and have increased 

 so rapidly that vessels can now be supplied with fresh beef. 

 There are but few horses in the group ; yet these are highly 

 prized. There are no venomous reptiles ; but eels, and land 

 and water snakes, are seen. Turtles are also quite common. 

 Frigate birds, boobies and noddies, abound. Tern breed 

 in great numbers in the thickets on the smaller islands. 

 Sixty or seventy different kinds of pigeons are found, some 

 of which are held sacred and kept as playthings. The prin- 

 cipal singing bird is the philomel ; but the woods and groves 

 are filled with countless warblers, prominent among which 

 is the poe, that make them vocal with their " wordless 

 melody." 



The most common fish are the mullet and the lou — the 

 latter much smaller than the other. They are caught in 

 casting nets, seines, and fishing weirs. Women also catch 

 them by placing baskets near the holes in the reefs, where 

 they take shelter. They are likewise speared by torchlight, 

 and taken in deep water with a hook. 



(9.) Being favored with a soil so fertile, and a climate so 

 propitious, the productions of the Samoan Group are hardly 

 excelled anywhere within the tropics. The thick tufts of the 

 cocoa, and the long branching sprays of the tree-fern, proba- 

 bly cause the vegetation to appear more abundant than it 

 really is ; but if these were removed, a wilderness of choice 

 fruits and rich blossoms would be revealed, to please the eye 

 and gratify the appetite. But a small portion of the land is 

 under cultivation, and there are thousands of acres unfilled, 

 where the coffee bush, the sugar cane, and the cotton plant, 

 would thrive luxuriantly. 



The cultivated trees and plants are the bread-fruit, cocoa- 

 nut, banana, plantain, ti, paper-mulberry, tacca, sugar cane, 

 ooffee, ava plant, sweet potato, pine apple, melon, papaya, 

 yam, taro, lemon, sweet orange and lime. The manufacture 

 of sugar from the cane is yet in its infancy, — the natives 

 having hitherto been accustomed to use the saccharine matter 



