2l6 RENNELL - AN OUT OF THE WAY CORAL ISLAND 



looking for bats and birds, both for the purpose of studying their habits 

 and song and in order to shoot some for skinning. We studied the biology 

 of ghost crabs, recorded colour descriptions of the small gaily coloured 

 creatures of the coral reef, and gathered the local names of all larger 

 animals, together with information about their importance as native food, 

 and so on. A naturalist in so virgin a territory as Rennell need never be 

 bored ! 



What were the animals which had found a home on this remote and 

 inhospitable island since it had been raised out of the sea to become dry 

 land some time in the Tertiary period? 



The only previously known mammals were two species of a large fruit- 

 eating bat, a flying-fox (Pteropus geddiei and renelli), from the teeth of 

 which the natives made fine necklaces. The bats were caught with a spear 

 made from rattan thorns fixed to a long shaft, while sleeping, suspended 

 head downwards from tall trees in the daytime. We found three other spe- 

 cies of bats, the smallest being no larger than the two end joints of a finger. 



It was by chance that we discovered there were rats on the island. By 

 drawing one we then made the natives understand that we wanted spe- 

 cimens of "kimoa", as they called them; the result was a number of fine 

 rats. We subsequently learnt that the rats of Rennell Island are by no 

 means as rare or as shy as we had at first believed, for one night they 

 boldly carried off some of my stuffed birds, tearing them to pieces in a 

 corner of the hut. Their disappointment at finding the birds full of wood- 

 wool and cotton-wool must have been as great as my annoyance at wasted 

 labour. 



To begin with we paid little attention to the birds, since the American 

 Whitney Expedition, which spent i8 years collecting birds on the thou- 

 sands of South Sea islands, had obtained and skinned 380 specimens on 

 Rennell in 1928 and 1930. But finding ourselves with a little more time 

 than expected and no more alcohol and formalin, we turned to the birds 

 and succeeded in collecting more than 50. Incidentally, in the humid 

 atmosphere and the primitive conditions under which we were working 

 we had the utmost difficulty in getting our stuffed birds, butterflies, and 

 other specimens to dry properly, while the myriads of tiny but incrediblv 

 voracious ants made storage something of a problem. 



There were many large and conspicuous birds; on the lake, for example, 

 a cormorant, a heron, an ibis (which we also saw strutting about in the 

 forest), and two species of teal, which — unlike most other birds — the 

 natives did not eat as they considered the flesh to be unclean. Conse- 

 quently, the teal, being never hunted and having (like most of the other 



