84 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



whole specimen for the Museum, consisting as they did of scraps 

 of Fala leaves plastered together with excrement, and scantily 

 lined with a few tufts of coarse fibre. I sent the native to 

 procure the eggs, but in most cases the young birds were com- 

 mencing to fly, and my friend Tanai ascended several trees in 

 vain before he was rewarded with a couple of eggs, one of which 

 proved addled, and the other was safely brought to Sydney. 

 With a few well directed stones Tanai knocked over some fledg- 

 lings. Plucking but not drawing these, he spitted them on a 

 split cocoanut midrib, and toasted them over a wood fire. They 

 were very fat and tender, and on these and the pithy interior of 

 a sprouting cocoanut we made an excellent breakfast. 



Netting these birds is a sport much enjoyed by the natives. 

 The 'shaou shaou,' made like a butterfly net, has a bag about 

 3 ft. by 2 ft. of four-inch meshes of fine sinnet twine, spread on a 

 wooden hoop and mounted on a ten foot pole. After dark the 

 party of hunters walk out quietly to the scene of operations. 

 One, divesting himself of his dress for greater freedom of move- 

 ment, ascends a low tree and gaining a suitable station, imitates 

 by a purring sound of his lips the call of the Lakea. A bird flies 

 up answering the call, and at a sweep the decoyed tern is 

 struggling in the net. The trapper does not kill the bird, but 

 twisting its wings across its back ties the longer quills together 

 or latches one wing into the other, and flings the struggling bird 

 to his mates. If another kind of bird comes in sight the 

 call is changed, and with a whizzing sound it too is deluded to 

 within reach of the fatal net. These calls are very difficult to 

 voice, few even of the natives do it well, and a European can 

 hardly hope to succeed. When the man aloft is tired another of 

 the party relieves him. Perhaps in one night a hundred birds 

 would fall to a net, providing a great feast on returning to the 

 village. Another method requiring less skill is to take the birds 

 by a smaller net set at an angle to the long handle. Creeping 

 quietly up to the tree the fowler, standing on the ground, sweeps 

 or rather 'spoons' the roosting birds off the bough." 



The following is a list of the birds obtained in the Ellice 

 Islands by Mr. Fritz Jansen in 1876, and which formed the basis 

 of a short paper by Dr. R. B. Sharpe, to whom they were sub- 

 mitted by the Rev. S. J. Whitmee for determination* : 



1. Ardea sacra. 



2. Procelsterna ccerulea, 



3. Anous stolidus. 



4. Micranous leucocapillus. 



5. Sterna ancestheta. 



*On a Small Collection of Birds from the Ellice Islands. By E. 

 Bowdler Sharpe, F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. With a note on the other birds 

 found there. By the Rev. S. J. Whitmee. Proc. Zool. Soc., 1878, p. 271. 



