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The Frigate-bird post of the Pacific.



scores of them about the villages sitting on long perches erected

for them near the beach. The natives procure the young birds

and tie them by the leg and feed them till they are tame.

Afterwards they let them loose and they go out to sea together

to get their food and return to their perches in the villages at

intervals.”


Some little time back, before I had come across the above, I

had heard a slightly different version of the same from a friend of

mine, much of whose life had been passed in the Solomons, Gilberts,

and other little-known Pacific Islands. In many places he had often

seen captive Frigate-birds, but in one particularly isolated island or

group the natives had got as far as using these birds as postmen !

These islanders were dependent for the little outside trade they had

on very occasional (sometimes at intervals of two or three years)

arrival of trading schooners. These never made the islands under

ordinary circumstances, as they were so remote from the usual

routes and also so poorly furnished with the usual matters of trade,

but would no doubt do so “ if sufficient inducement offered,” as the

steamer announcements put it. One of the places which the traders

regularly visited happened to include a nesting-site of the Frigate-

birds. It was by means of this that our islanders (I believe they

were part of the Ellice group, but am not sure) communicated with

the outside world. Just before the nesting-season they caught a

certain number of birds to whose legs they tied bladders ; after

which they let them go. The bladders contained pieces of stone,

stick, shell, etc., which constituted the message. This always

referred to the amount of “ trade” (copra, pearl-shell, or whatever it

was) ready for removal. As far as my informant knew, no more

personal news was sent, at any rate nothing written, for that was an

art beyond them. In due course the birds repaired to their breeding-

place. Here any would-be visitor caught any bladder-bearing bird

he saw, and no doubt decided from the news thus brought whether

it was worth his while making the journey to their place of origin.

That it would be easy to catch the nesting-birds is obvious, but how

the first captures were managed is by no means so clear. If they

were caught just before the breeding-season, they must then

have been full-winged. This point never struck me till I read the



