R A S R E S. 



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" This bird formerly abounded in the Island of Upolu, one of the 

 Saraoan Islands, but now it is considered a rare species by the natives, 

 and one which will be entirely destroyed in the course of a few years, 

 if the same causes exist which are now operating to their destruction. 

 They build their nests and pass most of the time on the ground, and 

 flush like Partridges or Grouse, with a whirring sound, produced by their 

 wings. Their food is mostly fruit, including a species of fig, growing in 

 the mountainous regions which they inhabit. The tree called oioa by 

 the natives [Ficus prolixa? of botanists), producing the fig, is repre- 

 sented in our plate wath the bird ; it forms a remarkable feature in 

 the Samoan scenery, its broad and ample branches spreading like 

 umbrellas above all the other forest trees, many of which are gigantic, 

 although covered, in a measure, by these enormous canopies. The 

 trunks of the owa trees are little forests in themselves; that from 

 which our sketch was made measured one hundred and two feet in 

 diameter, and about the same from the ground to the main branches. 



" The natives of the Samoan Islands, who spend much of their time 

 indolently, are fond of pets, which are mostly Pigeons or Doves, their 

 islands not affording suitable quadrupeds. A few years since a passion 

 arose for cats, and they were obtained by all possible means from the 

 whale ships visiting the islands, were much esteemed for a while, until 

 the other pets were devoured by them ; after which. Pussy (a name 

 generally adopted by the Polynesians for cats), not liking yams and 

 taro, the principal food of the islanders, preferred Manu-mea, and took 

 to the mountains in pursuit of them. There the cats have multiplied, 

 and become wild, and live upon our Didunculns, or little Dodo, the 

 Manu-mea of the natives, which, it is believed, will, in a very few 

 years, cease to be known, excepting by the miserable fragments now 

 deposited in the National Museum, in the City of Washington, unless 

 some more lucky collectors get them better than we did. They are, 

 however, more perfect than the remains of the great Dodo {Dldus 

 ineptus, of Linnaeus), which are preserved in the Ashmolean and 

 British Museums. We were enabled by great labor to obtain three 

 specimens, one of which was lost by the wreck of our ship, the other 

 two, deposited as stated, are male and female, but badly preserved. 



" At Tahiti, the Garnet-winged Pigeon ( Coliimba erythroptera, of 

 Latham), was said to abound ; they have, in like manner, been de- 

 stroyed by cats introduced by early navigators, and since become 

 wild, though retaining their varied colors like those domesticated. 



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