46 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
There was a paw paw tree near our quarters, but the fruit was 
not ripe. Minah birds were common and Stoner procured several, 
incidentally getting from them several interesting parasites, some 
of which appeared to be new. A few herons visited the shore oc- 
casionally and we were told that the large fruit-bats or ‘‘flying 
foxes’’ roost in some of the trees at night; however, we saw none 
of them. The boy brought us some of the eggs of a small lizard 
which he found under the bark of a tree. They were round and 
as large as small marbles, indeed they seemed out of proportion 
to the size of the animal itself. 
Coconut palms are the most abundant trees here, but there are 
a number of others, usually near the east shore, which have 
grotesquely twisted branches and dark leaves. They are called 
‘‘butterfly trees.’’ Another tree has large glossy leaves and nuts 
encased in a very light spongy tissue which floats it in water. 
The whole affair looks much like a round sponge. We were told 
that the enclosed nuts, or seeds, furnish a poison used by the 
natives to kill fishes. 
Speaking of nuts reminds me of the facility with which the 
Fijians climb the coconut palms. When we wanted some of the 
milk to drink the boy climbed the long slender trunks like a 
monkey and threw down as many nuts as we wanted. The novice 
has much trouble in removing the dense fibrous outer husks; but 
Alfred used a pointed stick, set the blunt end on the ground 
where it was braced against a log and forcibly drove the nut 
against the sharp point; thus it was hulled in a fraction of a 
minute. 
The Fiji lad, Esile, was a very bright little fellow much in- 
terested in all our doings. We found him a keen collector and 
he secured many specimens that otherwise might have escaped 
us. The facility with which he learned new words, even technical 
scientific terms, was highly amusing. It sounded really weird to 
hear this naked boy, removed from savagery by no more than two 
generations, exclaim—‘‘Look, here is a nudibranch,’’ or to an- 
nounce the discovery of a new kind of ‘‘holothurian.’’ He was 
quite useful in interpreting Fijian into English or vice versa, or 
either of these into Indian for the benefit of the cook. 
On Sunday the talk turned to religion and we learned that the 
old Fijians practiced a ‘‘devil worship,’’ but that Alfred was a 
good Wesleyan Methodist. Many of the old superstitions were 
retained, however, and he declared that he would never dive near 
