16 Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
Four years ago the Gilbert and Kingsmill 
Groups (known collectively as the Line Islands) 
and the Ellice Group were annexed by Great 
Britain ; and although people in Australia hear 
and read a good deal about the Gilberts and 
Kingsmills by reason of their being the location 
of the newly-appointed British Resident and 
Deputy-Commissioner for the Western Pacific, 
seldom is anything heard about or told of the 
almost equally important Ellice Group. The 
reason for this is not far to seek. The Line 
Islanders — fierce, turbulent, and war-loving 
people, island hating island with the same 
savage animosity that characterised the High¬ 
land clans of the thirteenth century—are a 
difficult race to govern, and although the 
London Missionary Society has done much 
good, the Resident has his work cut out to 
prevent the people of his sixteen islands 
shooting and cutting each other’s throats as 
they did in the good old days. For when 
Captain Davis, of Her Majesty’s ship Royalist, 
hoisted the English flag, he sternly intimated 
that there was to be no more fighting, and 
later on the High Commissioner, Sir John 
Thurston, in the Rapid, made them disarm ; 
