168 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



Wake Island, an isolated atoll, which I would regard as an 

 extension of the chain, is recorded by Peale, 18 and is at the same 

 time the most northerly and westerly (with New Caledonia) rat- 

 inhabited island of which I have notice. Passing southward and 

 westward the rat next appears to have been observed at Odia in 

 the Marshall Group, and is represented by Kotzebue 15 in an illus- 

 tration as impudently trespassing in a Marshall Island house. 



Continuing the chain, the rat is recorded from the Gilbert 

 Group by Woodford, 25 who remarks that the only wild mammal 

 he met with was a small species of rat common to the islands " in 

 this part of the world." 



The next group is that of the Ellice, of which the island of 

 Funafuti at least, is tenanted, and supplied the examples, to be 

 more fully described, and which prompted the present essay. 



Mention has previously been made of Savaii being the traditional 

 ancestral home of the Maori rat, but further evidence of its 

 occurrence in Samoa is indicated by the reference to it in ancient 

 tradition detailed by Turner, 23 and direct evidence is afforded 24 

 by this writer in the following note : " The only indigenous 

 quadruped is a small rat, something between a mouse and the 

 Norwegian rat, the latter of which was introduced some years 

 ago." 



The last in the direct chain to which I have reference to 

 the rat is the Cook Group, its occurrence being mentioned at 

 Raratonga and Mangaia by Gill. 9 & 10 



Of localities to the east of the main chain the following have 

 been published. In the Phoenix Group Peale 18 records it from 

 Hull Island, and Arundel 2 from Sydney Island. Much further 

 to the east it has been met with by Dixon 7 at Maiden Island, 

 and also further to the south by Lament, as quoted by Smith 21 

 at Penhryn Island, and Dixon 8 at Caroline Island, all isolated 

 atolls. In the Paumotu Group or Low Archipelago Peale again 

 records it from Disappointment and Dog Islands, and also from 

 the Society Islands, remarking that the species was seen on but 

 one "high" island, Tahiti. 



Its north-eastern limit is suggested by a statement by Brigham 3 

 that " Hats and mice have always been a pest on the Hawaiian 

 Islands ; and the old Hawaiian, before the introduction of cats, 

 used a bow and arrows to destroy them. It is curious that 

 knowing the principle of the bow they never used it as a weapon 

 of offence, nor developed it beyond a very feeble instrument only 

 suited to the killing of 'rats and mice and such small deer.' " 



To the westward of the main chain Allardyce 1 records it from 

 Ho tu in ah, and it is once more mentioned by Peale from Fiji 

 as Mus vitiensis, and from Hoonga in the Tonga Islands by 



