694 HUT ON VULCAN ISLAND. 



My hut was quite open on the lee-side, and there were rents in the thatching 

 which gaped wider when my boatmen abstracted handfuls of the desiccated leaflets for 

 the purpose of lighting the fire. Of course I put a stop to this practice as soon as 

 I detected it, and my folding bedstead and mosquito curtain, with other impedimenta, 

 made the place habitable for about a month, after which I moved into more commodious 

 quarters afforded by a Chinese trader's house at Karavia, a village lying opposite to 

 Raluan on the mainland. 



During my tenure of the hut on Raluan, To-vungia honoured me with several 

 visits, generally accompanied by a crowd of retainers who clustered round the threshold 

 of my primitive abode, no doubt thinking that my occupation was only worthy of 

 a white man. When I first knew To-vungia he was unregenerate and interesting, with 

 the long cord-like, half-bleached, tawny, pendent, spiral locks which are characteristic 

 of these natives and also of some of the Solomon Islanders 1 . 



These visits were not always a source of unmixed pleasure, their inquisitive dis- 

 position leading some of the visitors to investigate the penetralia of my hut with 

 scant ceremony and somewhat to my disgust when, as too often happened, they were 

 afflicted with appalling sores. 



Meanwhile as I had a great quantity of baggage to store away, including dredges, 

 laboratory appliances and other more or less necessary encumbrances, Mr Parkinson 

 kindly detailed some of the native labourers on the plantations, to erect a rain-proof 

 shelter of bamboos and plaited palm-leaves on the beach in the Ralum district at 

 a spot called Ka-ra-koai, meaning " under the mango-trees," of which there were three 

 in the vicinity. No flooring was laid clown, as the black tufaceous soil is so porous 

 that the heaviest downpour of rain sinks immediately below the surface. Care had to 

 be taken not to place wooden cases on the bare earth on account of the ravages of 

 the white ants (termites) to which they would be exposed. Small cylinders of bamboo 

 (which is proof against termites) laid upon the ground under the cases, afforded 

 sufficient protection for the time being, and I stored various articles in this place and 

 even worked here occasionally, although it was not possible to bring fresh material 

 from Blanche Bay, the distance being too great. 



As I was quite ignorant of the mode of propagation of Nautilus, I employed all 

 available methods in my preliminary researches with the idea of arriving at my object 

 by a process of exclusion. These methods included the investigation of the superficial 

 waters of the bay by means of the tow-net, in order to determine the nature of the 

 Plankton or drift-fauna (Auftrieb) of this locality, since many animals which live close 

 in-shore or at the bottom in moderate depths (less than a hundred fathoms), lead 

 a roving pelagic life during the early stages of their development. 



Besides pelagic larvae of Mollusca, Annelida, Echinoderma and Anthozoa, the 

 invertebrate Plankton also includes many adult animals which affect a pelagic environ- 

 ment throughout life. These are distinguished by the excessive transparency of their 

 tissues, which renders necessary a careful blending of the light before their structure 



1 Admirable photographs of the New Britain natives taken by Mr Parkinson have been published in the 

 Album der Paptla-Typen, edited by A. B. Meyer and R. Parkinson, Dresden, 1894. 



