Old Samoan Days. 
187 
ridges into our guns in readiness for a chance 
shot, as even at this short distance from the 
town the great, blue-plumaged birds are to be 
met with. The road has become narrower, and 
in the place of the tall, slender coco-palms, 
growing so thickly in the flat country, we see 
all round us the great masoi and tamanu trees, 
towering up high above all their fellows of the 
wood. We meet very few natives now, and 
pass no more plantations. Every now and then 
the fuia, the Polynesian blackbird, utters his 
shrill, sharp note, and flitting in front of us 
perches on an overhanging branch, leaning his 
head on one side in a pert, impudent manner, 
and saucily staring with his beady black eye 
at the intruders. Bird life is plentiful here. 
Flocks of gay, bright little paroquets dart in 
quick flashes of colour among the undergrowth 
of the forest ; while overhead there fills the air 
the soft cooing of thousands of ring-doves. 
Well have the Samoans named the ring-dove 
manu-tagi —the bird that “ cries ”—for there is 
to their imaginative natures an undercurrent of 
sadness in the gentle cooing notes that fill the 
silent mountain forest with their plaintive 
melody, and which is rendered the more 
