ILLUSTRATIONS OF ORNITHOLOGY. 
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 coyered in 
a measure by these enormous canopies. The trunks of Owa trees 
are little forests in themselves; the one from which our sketch was 
made measured 102 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 doyes, 
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 Di- 
dunculus or little Dodo, the Manu-mea of the natives, which it is 
believed will in a yery 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 (Didus ineptus of Linnaus), which are 
preserved in the Ashmolean and British Museums. We were et- 
abled by great labour 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 (Columba erythroptera of Latham) was said to 
abound ; they have in like manner been destroyed by eats, intro- 
duced by early navigators and since become wild, though retaining 
their yaried colours like those domesticated. 
“ The pigeons or doves are now almost unknown, and the cats 
are driven to the necessity of feeding on lizards.” — Wilkes’ United 
States Explor. Exped. Vol. viii. p. 211. 
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