S82 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 1899. 1 
The Palolo Anniversary. 
Just about this time the ardent sportsman will be 
reckoning up the days and the stars and the blossoms 
of the trees accordmg to a legendary schedule in order 
to determine the coming of the Palolo— ihat is, if he is 
a South Pacific sportsman. There is a close season on 
palolo. The open season lasts less tlian three hours in 
the year, and no one ever took palolo out of season. It 
is not that the primitive islanders of the .South Sea have 
any game laws, nor if they had any would they be at aU 
likely to Observe them. Nature herself regulates the 
preservation of this game. When the close season is 
on the palolo is shut up in a box as tight as a drum, and 
the very keenest seanph fails to disclose a single speci- 
men in the reef pools, which at the appointed time will 
writhe with them. Something like a game law, that is, 
for it is automatic and self-administering, with no need 
of game wardens and penalties. 
Worms are intimately associated with fishing; in many 
cases a necessary preliminary. But to go fishing for 
worms is a novelty in the line of sport, and one for which 
it is absolutely necessary to go to the uttermost parts of 
the earth and to be there promptly on time. That is all 
that the palolo is— a wriggling worm of the sea. But 
the South Sea people know no greater delicacy. Its 
coming marks for them the beginning of the year. They 
travel long distances to reach the reefs where the palolo 
is known to come, and more than one savage battle has 
arisen because access to a favorite reef has been forbid- 
den by earlier comers. 
The habitat of the palolo is restricted to the South 
Pacific and to a circumscribed area within the torrid 
zone. It is unknown outside of certain coral reefs in 
the three central archipelagoes of Samoa, Fiji and Tonga. 
Even within its area the worm is by no means widely 
distributed, for it is only certain narrow strips of coral 
reef which afford a home for the animal. Thus on the 
whole of the north coast of Upolu there is only one 
strip of the fringing reef, less than half a mile in length, 
where the worm is ever found. The line of separation is 
drawn as sharply as though by a wall; but the most care- 
flil examination of the reef corals reveals no apparent 
distinctive difference which might account for this phe- 
nomenon on the score of difference of surroundings. 
Furthermore, the coral beds in which palolo are known 
to thrive present the most wide differences among them- 
selves in the matter of the genera of corallines and corals 
that form the reef. It is a mystery, but where all con- 
nected with the life history of the animal is so mysterioiK 
one additional puzzle makes little difference. 
This South Sea worm has taken its place in systematic 
zoologJ^ and may be found in the larger cabinets, with 
its double Latin name attached. Gray, the English 
zoologist, identified the worm from preserved specimens, 
placed it among the annelids, and erected for it a special 
class, CorallicolcE, in which it is represented hy the unique 
genus and species Palolo viridis. That does all very well 
for systematic purposes of science. When it comes to the 
life history of the worm the primitive savages of the 
islands may be in dense ignorance of its scientific name 
and place in the scale of nature, but they know the really 
essential point of when and where and how to get the 
Avorm, and biology as yet knows no more, if so much. 
This account of the palolo is derived from personal 
observation and from careful talk with .the oldest Samo- 
ans, who yet retain the knowledge that belonged to their 
race before the white people came upsetting things in 
general. 
The most striking of the mysteries of the palolo is its 
period. Other animals know no calendar; the palolo 
keeps account of time, and makes its appearance with 
strict attention to schedule. For a small part of just 
one day in the whole year it comes within sight of men 
and then goes into retirement for another year. There 
is a mystery that will call for much study how a marine 
worm can reckon the days and months and never fail 
to appear at its appointed season. 
White people with their calendars compute that the 
palolo is due at dead low water in the night of the third 
quarter of the moon nearest the first of November. But 
as that reckoning involves both the solar and the lunar 
months it is apparent that it will be bringing the palolo 
earlier and earlier each year. But the palolo does not 
do_ ally such a thing; it follows its own schedule and 
adjusts lunations to the sun and to the sidereal year with 
the utmost precision. The white men have never yet 
been able to predict when the palolo will apply the cor- 
rection for the difference between the lunar .calendar and 
the sun's year, and for that reason the calendar computa- 
tion finds itself sometimes a full lunation ahead of the 
worm. 
The Pacific islanders are wiser. They are very Avise 
indeed in regard to anything to eat, and their computa- 
tion of the palolo is never known to fail. A very wise 
old Samoan gives this method of forecasting the single 
day of this strange fishing : When the aloalo comes into 
flower with its gorgeous cardinal spikes of bloom on 
bare branches overhanging the sea; when three other 
shrubs which it would be hard to identify for any for- 
eigners but the botanists are covered vvith blossoms; 
when the trees are putting forth their new shoots, then 
you may know that the palolo moon is near. Then you 
scan the heavens for further signs. When the "carrying 
pole," which is the Belt of Orion, has set; when you 
can no longer see the constellations known to native 
astronomy as the Man and the Duck — then you may be 
sure that the palolo fishing is close at hand. Now you 
\vatch for the moon. When you have had the right 
signs on the frees and in the sky, the moon enables you 
to fix the exact day of the fishing; the new moon, which 
follows these signs, is the one on which to reckon, and 
its third quarter is the time for the mj'sterious worms 
to come to the surface, 
It is only the very sage Samoans who can forecast from 
th«se elements. It is an art now rapidlv passing away. 
The modern islanders, who have lost much of the wisdom 
of the sky and the forest, keep a careful count of the 
days since the last palolo. That is a duty of the prin- 
cipal talking man of each village. For his fishing 
calendar he has a small basket, which is hung out of 
the way on one of the rafters of his house. For his 
further provision he has nine black pebbles, nine red and 
green feathers of the island parrakeet, and three leaves, 
Each day after the palolo he drops into the basket one of 
the black pebbles. On the ninth day the last pebble 
goes into the basket, and on the tenth day all the peb- 
bles are turned out and a feather put in their place. Thus 
a feather is put into the basket every tenth day, as 
reckoned in the interval by the pebbles. On the hun- 
dredth day he tm-ns out nine feathers and nine black 
pebbles and puts a leaf in their place to denote a hundred. 
When the basket holds three leaves, five feathers and four 
pebbles the palolo is due next morning. This interval 
of 354 days is good for two years. On the third it is 
necessary to reckon .384 since the last palolo fishing. 
These are the methods: by which white and savage 
men keep the reckoning. How the worm itself down 
deep in the coral knows when its one day has come 
around, what force of nature brings it up to spawn on 
that day, and no other, is a mystery all unsolved. 
The worm is of about the. girth of a thick twine. Its 
length is much dependent on circumstances, for it is very 
fragile, and drops .asunder at the joints when caught, so 
that it is difficult to estimate what the original length 
was. Specimens which have been carefully floated out 
have measured more than 3oin. Whether long or short, 
the girth of the animal seems constant. Museum speci- 
mens are invariably in fragments, and therefore are of 
no assistance in determining this point. 
The head of the palolo is involved in considerable 
doubt. Gray, who established the place of the animal 
in zoology, pictures its head as marked with three spines, 
of wiiich the central one is a little the longest, the three 
being arranged like a trident projecting forward from the 
top of the head; eyes are represented at the base of the 
spines; behind the spines is an oval depression, into 
which projects backward a short spine. This seems to be 
a mistake of some sort, for careful observation has failed 
to show a living palolo with a head corresponding w-ith 
that description. Really , the head of the worm is a 
blunt termination and distinguished from the other seg- 
ments only by its greatei" length and the absence of the 
lateral bristles. The rings of the body are fiattened out 
into a slight keel at each side, and on these keels each 
segment has a bunch of bristles at each side, apparently 
for use in swimming. There is a breathing hole in the 
middle of each segment, the series showing as a line of 
dark dots along the worm from tip to tail.'^ The last six 
segments taper down to the tail, w^iich is ornamented 
with two long and -two short spines. The males are 
white or reddish; the females range from dark green to 
black. 
If this were all there is to the palolo it would amount 
to no more than a curiosity of zoology. The South 
Sea Islanders, however, have' neither knowledge nor 
care for these details and problems. To them the sea 
worm is the raw material for such a gorge as is dear 
to the savage nature. 
When the white men's calendtu and the count of leaves 
■and red feathers and black pebbles and the wisdom of 
the stars and the blossoms all agree that palolo day is 
at hand, the Samoans who live on beaches where the 
worm does not rise paddle off to visit more highly 
favored communities. Very few come to Apia, for its 
fishery is but small, and there i,? not room for a hundred 
canoes in the pools of its scanty half-mile of productive 
reef. In Savaii there, is an abundance of the delicacy, 
and on the south coa.st of Upolu there are famous fish- 
eries. 
The night before Palolo it is just as well to go to bed 
early, for it is going to be an early start in the morning. 
The Samoans go promptly to sleep, with the exception 
of one detailed to keep the watch. At 3 o'clock his 
shout rings out as he calls the rapidly falling tide and the 
rising into view of the coral patches, for the moon at its 
last quarter has little power to illuminate, and does no 
more than make ghosts and; phantoms of things seen. 
The signal is passed from house to house, until the 
village is fairly ringing with glad acclamation. Each 
Samoan brings his paddle from the house with him, 
the canoes are drawn up in line beneath the cocoanuts 
at_ the edge of the beach and the launching is simple. 
Little time is lost in getting under way, and the fleet 
heads out directly for the well-known fishing ground, 
Samoan canoes draw little, and if only there is as much 
as 6in. of water it will serve as a channel. Thus the 
fishers edge themselves into pools wnthin the reef, where 
they hope to find a bounteous supply. And still the tide 
goes out as if it were never to come ba«k, and more 
and more of the reef appears on every side. Some have 
made a miscalculation. Instead of being in a pool they 
find themselves high and dry on the coral, with the tide 
still falling. Then they must carry the canoe from pool 
to pool in search of water to. float it, and all the while 
their friends .are jeering tliem. It is a noisy gathering. 
If they are not pokirig 'fun at the unfortunate or scolding 
those who trespass on sonie favored pool they are at 
least singing. And stilLthe tide goes out. 
Only a few feet away are the seaward breakers. Stead- 
ily the great waves sweep, in relentlessly from the sea. 
They comb over and' beat in thunder and tumult on the 
coral wall. The air is filled with their salt spume; yet 
not a ripple passes the barrier to disturb the fishing 
fleet under the. protection of the great wall of the barrier 
reef. The thin edge of the moon is riding higher, but 
the pallid light, which makes even the brown faces seem 
green, is not from the moon; it is the blanching eastern 
sky that goes before the dawn. The pools grow smaller 
and smaller, and the struggle grows greater to get 
w'ithin some pool and not be left behind on the coral 
as the tide goes out. But now the older men shout for 
silence, and the commirid of the aged has weight with 
these skylarking savages. The old men are scanning the 
surface of the pools, and now and then they sweep with 
their nets. The tide goes out no more— no more of the 
reef darkens the .surface; it is slack water. It is now but 
a Question of moments until the worm_s come forth. 
There is only one sort of net that is any good for oalolo 
— a piece of mosquito netting drawn over a forked twig 
or a leoped bam,boo and of about the size of a. pocket 
handkerchief. With this the surface is skimmed, and the 
water can flow off sufficiently rapidly to preserve the worm 
in large pieces if not entire. 
It is dead low water. The tide must surely turn this 
\ ery minute. There is no wind at that time of day. The 
dawn calm broods over the sea. Not a ripple shimmers 
the water. There is not a sign anywhere of living thing 
in that water. You can feel the tension of the scene, and 
though it is your first palolo fishing, there is a contagion 
in the enthusiasm of those about you. You strain your 
eyes at the surface of your pool and sweep it with your 
net. Lucky if you are not cheated by some dark twig 
of coral, to the destruction of your net. There is not a 
living thing in that water, and you feel the chill of the 
summer morning and wish that you had not come. All 
at once, and at once from every side of you, you hear 
the shout, "Ta palolo! U-U-U! Ta palolo!" ("Struck 
palolo! Oh, ho! Struck palolo!") 
You feel like paddling to see the find, forgetful that 
the tide has locked you in your own pool and that you 
have not Samoan feet to run unhurt over the jagged 
coral. All of a sudden you bethink yourself to look at 
your own pool, bare as you knew it to be. Bare? did you 
say? Why, it's fairly alive with masses floating up from 
the coral grove over which you are poised. You sweep 
your net and find that you have a bunch of wrigglers in 
It. Details are impossible in the obscurity, but you are 
moved to raise the Samoan cry, and on your own account 
you shout, "Ta, palolo!" Better rest content at that, for 
It is only long years in the South Sea can teach the way 
to give the rest of the call. Now, never mind the shout- 
ing — scoop! Palolo comes but once a year — scoop! Don't 
discourse to anybody about the zoological mysteries, but 
scoop. Fill your bucket with the worms and let them 
writhe and wriggle while you scoop more to bear them 
company. Scoop as fast as you may, the same spot 
yields just as many worms, no matter how quickly you 
can get your net cleared. This lasts for about half an 
hour; certainly not longer. That is, it takes the worms 
that length of time to get clear of their coral nests. After 
that time you can scoop your pool quite clear and no mo'-c 
will come into view. If left to themselves in the pool 
the worms remain on the surface between one and two 
hours in a hving scum. Then they sink to the bottom 
and are lost to sight in the tangle of the coral before 
the sun rises, all the islanders being convinced that the 
first ray of sunlight kills any belated worm. 
While you are scooping you will make your first essay 
at tasting Ihe savage delicacy. It may well be said tha't 
the eating of worms is an acquired taste, and it is just 
as well to make the first experiments under the cover of 
darkness. At any rate, you have carefully picked out one 
of the least of these worms, my brethren, and have in- 
serted it gingerly over the lips. To your surprise— and 
most likely to your disappointment — everything seems 
just as it was before. You taste nothing beside a little 
•salt water, and there is no fierce lashing about of the 
worm in your mouth and midst, as you have foreboding- 
ly imagined. But that's not the way to eat palolo. It 
should be served raw, of course. Sunlight is fatal to 
palolo, and for that reason the islanders cook onlv so 
much of the catch as they find themselves unable to 
consume before the sun rises. But cooked in leaves, it 
is coarse, and not at all to be considered. It is like the 
oyster, and cannot bide the fire. Take a handful of the 
worms freshly caught, and let the sea drain off; now 
"scoop" them up and leave th,e rest to nature. After 
they have passed the palate, the tongue begins to smack 
of the flavor that in our knowledge is associated with 
the sweet scallop, and that's what the palolo tastes of. 
.A.ny one can acquire the taste for palolo. But it is 
not to be recommended, for it's a long and weary way to 
the South Sea, and it is hardly worth while cultivating a 
taste that can be appeased only once a year, aiid that 
in the gray of the dawn 10,000 miles away. 
Llewella Pierce Churchill. 
The Side-Saddle. 
Editor Forest and Stream: ' " 
"Althgugli for feats of horsemanship unfit, 
Some things about the saddle I do remembet yet." 
Therefore please let me suggest that you make the 
proportionate danger to a woman from a broken saddle 
girth, as compared with the danger to a man, more than 
It really is. In either case the rider is mighty apt to get a 
fall, and how serious the results of that fall will be de- 
pends pretty much on how one alights. The only serious 
accident to any of my family from riding was the breaking 
of an arm of my son by a fall resulting from a broken 
girth. _ 
Again, the danger of a woman's skirts being caught by 
the pommel can be greatly lessened by a strip of elastic 
from horn to horn, thus making a slide to carry her skirts 
free, and the open "safety" stirrup often acts well in case 
of being thrown and prevents her being dragged. 
This, however, is all I can think of in mitigation of 
your condemnation of the side-saddle, and every other 
consideration is against it. With the best men's saddles 
(all of English make, I must confess) with the detach- 
able stirrup leathers, I believe it is impossible for a rider 
to be dragged by a foot, no matter which way he is 
thrown or which foot is caught in the stirrup iron. At 
lea.5t I have known several cases of a rider being thrown, 
or his horse falling with him, and in every instance the 
stirrup leather came off, with the stirrup on the foot. A 
young girl known to me often rides a small horse of mine, 
to which she is much attached, and always riding astride ; 
and while she prefers her own western saddle, I have 
persuaded her to use my English one, just to set my mind 
at rest about a dragging accident. 
But is not riding astride by ladies much more common 
than your editorial would indicate? I knoAV three young 
ladies and girls, very well bred, raised in the far West, 
who always ride thus, and this summer in Northampton! 
Mass.. I several times saw a lady astride of her horse! 
and I am told that this is not uncommon in Boston. Most 
certainly there is nothing in the remotest degree immodest 
about it. The divided skirt is a mystery to me, but T 
know that in her ordinary skirts a lady can ride astride 
gracefully and well, with no appearance of either im- 
modesty or ungracefulness ; for only a few weeks since 
I saw a young lady whfe was driving one of several teams 
