28 



W.J. SOLLAS 



[JANUARY 



with rich forest growth (Fig. 7), cocoa-nut palms in all stages, from the 

 young plant just sprouting from the shell to the ancient of the groves, 

 80 feet in height, bearing heavy clusters of ripe fruit beneath its 

 crown of feathery fronds ; pandanus, with its strange adventitious roots 

 and truculent sword-shaped leaves, broken in the middle ; the laurel- 

 like Nono {Morinda citrifolia) ; and the "Nya" tree (PcmjjJiis), with its 

 heavy stem of hard red wood, arid delicate foliage. Ferns abound, and 

 some brightly coloured flowering plants ; an Abutilon, which puts forth 

 fresh blossoms day by day ; and a handsome bean, which trails through 

 the forest, bearing large heart-shaped leaves and heavy racemes of lilac 

 flowers. 



The great robber-crab (Birgus), which feeds on cocoa-nuts and 



Fig. 7. — Forest scene in Funafuti. 



pandanus fruit, is at home here, and may be seen climbing the cocoa- 

 palms by night. Other land crabs scramble through the fallen palm 

 leaves which thickly strew the ground. Many of these are of 

 the hermit kind, and one of them has a curious habit of croaking like 

 a frog when captured. Bat no part of the island is free from land 

 crabs ; like rats and mice they are the universal scavengers ; they 

 undermined our house, attacked our tinned provisions, and one could 

 not sit down to eat a cocoa-nut without some of these weird creatures 

 gathering round to pick up the fallen crumbs. 



As we continue our passage across the sand, the scene rapidly, even 

 abruptly, changes its aspect ; the place of the forest so rich and varied 

 is taken by a grotesque growth of " Nya " trees, whose stubborn 

 contorted trunks, strangely at variance with their dainty foliage, bar 

 the way ; struggling through these, one enters upon a savage plain, 

 " horrid " with rugged fragments of blackened coral, and cumbered here 



