REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 151 



of bone or shell is firmly lashed and furnished with a tnft of stiff fiber 

 to serve as a lure. For lagoon fishing a hook made of a single piece 

 of lamelllbraneh or gasteropod shell is sometimes used, and for shark 

 fishing recourse is still occasionally had to the ancient hard- wood 

 hook ; but both of these types have been largely displaced by iron and 

 steel, in some cases the natives adapting the new materials to the old 

 familiar models. 



Iron wire has also almost displaced hard wood for the armament of 

 the fish spears, although the old model, with its crown of six or eight 

 points, is still adhered to from the Paumotus to the Carolines. Spear- 

 ing fish is practiced on the reefs at night when the flaring lights of 

 cocoanut-leaf torches are used to lure the fishes from their hidinsr- 

 places among the corals. 



The Albatross left Funafuti on December 26, and sailed for the 

 Gilbert Islands, coasting the island of Nukufetau en route. Between 

 the Ellice and Gilbert islands she encountered much bad weather, with 

 wind and rain, and it was found impossible to make soundings. In 

 the Gilberts the islands of Arorai, Onoatoa, Taputeuea, Apamama, 

 Maiana, Tarawa, Apaiang, Maraki, and Taritari were coasted and 

 examined. Landings for a few hours were made at most of them, 

 excepting Taritari, where the ship entered the lagoon and lay at 

 anchor for a day and a half off the village of Butaritari. 



Eleven soundings were made in the Gilberts, and the indications 

 are that these islands, like the Ellices, are the summits of rather steep 

 submarine peaks rising from a depth of about 2,200 fathoms. No 

 landing was made at Arorai, but natives who came off in a boat stated 

 that there was a small sink or pond, but no lagoon. Maraki has a 

 lagoon of considerable relative size, but, with the exception of two 

 small, shallow passes, practicable for boats only, it is entirely inclosed. 

 With the exception of Arorai and Maraki, all of the Gilbert Islands 

 visited by the Albatross have lagoons, which are only imperfectly 

 inclosed by land, the western part of the atolls, as a rule, consisting 

 of reefs, without the sandy linear islets which characterize the weather 

 side. Some of the atolls have a double fringe of islets, a peculiarity 

 which was nowhere seen in the Paumotus, but which was afterwards 

 noticed in certain of the atolls of the Marshall Archipelago. 



On the morning of January 5 the ship entered the southern passage 

 of Taritari atoll, under the guidance of a white pilot, and early in the 

 afternoon came to anchor off the village of Butaritari, where she 

 remained until the morning of January 7. The lagoon is full of coral 

 patches of all sizes, from a few feet in diameter up to reefs of consid- 

 erable size, and a collection of the characteristic species was obtained. 

 The shore and reef collecting proved poor in those portions of the 

 atoll within reach of the ship, and circumstances did not permit this 

 branch of the work at any considerable distance from the anchorage. 

 In company with some of the white residents and natives a trip was 

 made to the reefs near the entrance for the purpose of making a collec- 



