2B2 CHARADRIIFORMES CHAP. 
during the United States Exploring Expedition under Com- 
mander Wilkes, it has since been met with by several travellers 
and missionaries, three living specimens having been exhibited 
in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London. By 1863 
it was regarded as nearly extinct on Upolu, where it was formerly 
abundant, though it still held its own on Savai; but in 1874 
an increase was reported from the latter island, which was 
attributed to a change of habits, the birds having become 
arboreal instead of terrestrial. 
The oldest accounts, derived from native sources, stated that 
Didunculus was essentially a ground species, living on thickly- 
LZ 
Fig. 67.—Manu-mea or Tooth-billed Pigeon. Didunculus strigirostris, x 1. 
wooded mountain-sides in flocks of about a dozen, and feeding on 
berries, plantains (bananas), and yam fruit, while it roosted on 
low stumps, and bred on the ground, being rather shy, and 
taking to flight noisily with much flapping of the wings. Mr. 
Whitmee! and others, however, tell us that it now feeds almost 
exclusively on high trees, roosting aloft, and building in the 
forks. But as early as 1852 Lieutenant Walpole * asserted that 
the bird bred among rocks, perched and fed on trees, and flew 
from wood to wood, or even from island to island, so that it is 
not impossible that its supposed affinity to the Dodo led writers 
astray, and that its fondness for the ground was greatly exagger- 
ated. No doubt danger from introduced cats and rats would 
force the nest to be placed higher. 
1 P.Z.S. 1874, pp. 183, 184. 2 Op. cit. 1852, p. 87. 
