18 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
private shootings. The Ellice Islanders never 
fight, for they have a horror of bloodshed, and 
except for a few fowling-pieces used for shooting 
pigeons, there are no firearms in the group— 
save those in the possession of the white 
traders. 
Six hundred miles from Samoa, sailing north¬ 
westerly, the first of the group, Sophia Island, is 
sighted. It is the south-easterly outlier of the 
Ellices, and is the only one of sufficient height 
to be seen from the vessel’s deck at a distance of 
twenty miles. Until a few years ago it was un¬ 
inhabited, although the people of the next island, 
Nukulaelae, say that “ in the old, old time many 
people lived there.” It is about three and a half 
miles in circumference, has but few coconuts 
growing upon it, and would have remained 
untenanted in its loneliness to this day but for 
the discovery of a fairly valuable deposit of 
guano. Then it was taken possession of by 
an enterprising American store-keeper in Samoa 
named Moors, who landed native labourers and 
worked, and is still working, the deposit. The 
old native name of this spot is Ulakita—a name, 
by the way, that is almost unknown even to the 
