CRUSTACEA AND INSECTS. 387 
ment. Some fine pearls have occasionally been found, 
but actual pearl fishery has as yet not commenced on 
a large scale; and the Fijians in some of the islands 
act on the idea, that in order to preserve these trea- 
sures they must be boiled. The Davui (Triton variega- 
tus, Lamk.) is made into horns and trumpets, invari- 
ably found in all larger canoes. Ai Kaki or Ai Koi, a 
species of Doliwm, is used for scraping, as is also another 
univalve, the Tuasa or Ai Walui. Several kinds of oysters 
are eaten, and a fresh-water Cyrena is made into soup. 
Crustaceous animals are well represented. Shrimps, 
prawns, crayfish, lobsters, and crabs, are plentiful and 
esteemed as food by the natives. In some of the smaller 
islands, for instance Qelebevu and Vatuvara, a very large 
kind of land crab, called ‘“ Ugavule ” (probably Birgos 
latro, and the same of which C. Darwin speaks in his 
‘Journal of a Naturalist’), is common. Being fierce 
and strong, it is taken with some difficulty when on 
the ground, and throws earth and stones into the face 
of its pursuers. It climbs the highest cocoa-nut trees, 
and not only pierces the nuts, but removes the husk 
from the old nuts and breaks them, in order to get at 
the flesh. When up a tree, the natives take a bundle 
of grass and bind it round the body of the tree, about 
halfway up. The Ugavule comes down backwards, 
and when it gets to the grass it fancies the bottom 
has been reached, and, relinquishing its hold on the 
tree, falls twenty or thirty feet, and thus stunned is 
easily captured. 
The insect tribe is very numerous, both in species and 
individuals. Mosquitoes (Namu) are very troublesome 
2C2 
