HABITS or PALOLO YIBIDIS. 395 



seen, till tlie time of spawning. When the season for thi« process 

 arrives, they ascend to the surface of the water, iniside the 

 lagoon, near the outer reef, often in prodigious numbers ; and 

 the natives flock in their canoes, just before daylight, to catch 

 them by dipping them up in sieves of various kinds. (See an 

 interesting account of the scene on such occasions in Seemann's 

 ' Mission to Yiti,' jDp. 59-61.) 



The time of their appearance is the day of the last quartering 

 of the moon in each October, tmless that fall at the beginning of 

 the month, in which case there will intervene another lunar month. 

 This indicates that the moon exercises some mysterious influence 

 on their reproduction. This, however, is not without analogy in 

 nature, especially in reference to the Crustacea e. g. \ — it is re- 

 corded in Hood's ' Cruise of tho Pawn,' p. 127, that in Savaii, 

 *' three days before the arrival of the palolo, the malio or land- 

 crabs {Gecai'cinus) are seen marching down from the mountains 

 to the sea in myriads." 



The observations of many years, made by many old European 

 inhabitants as well as by the natives, show that, if from the time 

 of spawning in October we reckon 354 or 355 days, that will 

 bring us to another spawning, unless such reckoning terminate 

 at the end of September or the beginning of October, say from 

 the 1st to the 4th day. In that case the reckoning must extend 

 to 383 or 384 days, when the palolo will appear. Thus, instead 

 of an interval of only twelve lunar months, one of thirteen will 

 occur. 



The Eev. Gr. J. Whitmee has shoAvn, in a paper published in the 

 ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' June 1875, that it is j)ro- 

 bable that this longer interval occurs every third year. The 

 period appears to agree not so much with "solar time," as with 

 the Metonic cycle " of the moon, of 19 years or 235 months, 

 in which time the lunations return (nearly) and begin as they 

 were before." 



The natives are generally correct in their calculations as to the 

 time of the appearauce of palolo. They take, as the first indica- 

 tion of the approach of the season, the appearance of the scarlet 

 flowers (called Aloalo) of the G-atae {JErythrina indica). Then, 

 as a nearer approach, the general budding of the trees, and espe- 

 cially the flowering of the Tavai (Bhus taitensis), of the Lagaali 

 {AffUa edulis, Asa G-ray), and of the Seasea {Eugenia, sp.). 

 "When this last is in bloom, the men look out for the moon's being 

 just above the western horizon at the dawn of day, and on the 



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