RENNELL - AN OUT OF THE WAY CORAL ISLAND 



219 



by the upheaval, but succeeded in adapting itself to the increasingly fresh 

 lake-water. As a result of this adaptation the lake form is considerably 

 darker in colour than the ancestral form caught off the island, and 

 constitutes a separate subspecies. Curiously enough, we had evidence of 

 the same thing on the Philippine island of Luzon, where we heard of an 

 isolated species of sea snake which inhabited an old crater lake that had 

 once been connected with the sea. We failed to obtain a specimen at the 

 time, but our Philippine friends promised to send us one. A comparison of 

 the two lake forms is sure to prove interesting. 



There are no water-courses on Rennell Island, for the simple reason 

 that rain-water immediately sinks in between the corals. For the same 

 reason there are no frogs, toads, or newts on the island. But one will occa- 

 sionally find little pockets of water between large coral blocks, small 

 crystal-clear pools which probably have subterranean inflow and outfall, 

 and in one of these water holes, a couple of metres across, we made a 

 sensational discovery — a fine eel with the length and thickness of a man's 

 arm. It was in the centre of the island, five kilometres from the nearest 

 sea-shore and some 25 kilometres from the lake. How it had got there — 

 overland or by means of subterranean channels — is a mystery. 



In the lake we caught smaller eels and some fishes which were rather 

 like goby. These we also found in small water holes in the interior. In 

 the sea we took many gaily coloured coral-reef fishes and large flying- 

 fishes, which on moonless nights the natives lure to their canoes by burn- 

 ing torches made from dead palm leaves, and then skilfully catch in 

 home-made nets. Sharks, considered a great delicacy, are caught on huge 

 wooden hooks. Smaller fish are taken on ingenious mussel-shell hooks, 

 speared, or drugged with the juice of a liane, which is pounded out into 

 the small pools left on the coral reef by the receding tide. The native also 



Crab-holes made by Ocy- 

 pode. The species on the 

 right has piled the sand i?ito 

 a heap; the one on the left 

 has scattered it. 



