274 



FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



with the piece of cat-gut on an European fish-hook, will be spoken 

 of as the " cord of attachment." 



The exact shape of the manufactured article depends on the 

 growth of the fork from which it is hewn, and therefore exhibits 

 considerable variation, especially in the angle in which the limbs 

 diverge. I procured on Nukulailai rough forks (fig. 39) such as 



Fig. 39. 



Fig. 40. 



schoolboys select for making catapults, in the bark, intended for 

 palu hooks. I recognised the bark, and the natives further in- 

 formed me that the wood was " vala vala," ( Premna taitensis). 

 Dr. Finsch supposed that mangrove furnished the material of the 

 Gilbert Island hook he described. 



In Tahiti, Ellis tells us that the wooden shark hooks, a foot or 

 eighteen inches in length, were cut from the roots of the " aito " 

 tree (Casuarina equisetifolia), an exposed growing root of which 

 was sometimes twisted into the shape desired for the future hook.* 



In the carefully finished example figured (fig. 40), the shank is 

 flattened at the fork and rounded on the limbs ; this is not, how- 

 ever, the case in other specimens of rougher workmanship. This 



* Ellis foe. cit., i., p. 146. 



