RENNELL - AN OUT OF THE WAY 

 CORAL ISLAND 



By ToRBEN Wolff 



When a large expedition visits many scientifically interesting places, 

 it naturally carries out secondary studies where it can do so without pre- 

 judice to its primary objects. As will be described in a later chapter, Dr. 

 Kaj Birket-Smith, of the National Museum in Copenhagen, joined the 

 expedition with the intention of studying the primitive Polynesian popula- 

 tion of the remote island of Rennell in the Solomon group, in the south- 

 west Pacific. We had planned to drop Dr. Birket-Smith and a camera- 

 man in the Solomons, leaving them to make their own way to Rennell, but 

 en route from New Guinea it was decided that two zoologists might well 

 be spared for a small separate expedition to Rennell Island to study its 

 fauna. 



In the normal course of events Rennell Island is closed to white visitors, 

 but the British Resident Commissioner afforded us every facility, including 

 the services as interpreter and Government representative of the district 

 officer, Mr. A. Mackeith. The Resident Commissioner expressed surprise 

 that it was a Danish expedition which wished to visit Rennell, and said 

 that he had for several years corresponded with the British Museum 



