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taking some kinds of fish. Their country was little 
adapted for hunting, and the only quadrupeds they ever 
pursued were the wild hogs in the mountains; hut the 
smoothness and transparency of the sea within the reefs, 
favoured their aquatic sports ; and a chief and his men, 
furnished with their spears, &;c. often set out on their 
fishing excursions with an exhilaration of spirits equal 
to that with which a European nobleman pursues the 
adventures of the chase. The more daring of the young 
chiefs were generally among the foremost in pursuing 
the shark, or other dauntless fish; while others, more 
advanced in years, remained in their canoes at a distance, 
gratified to behold the sport, and share in some degree 
the excitement it produced. When the tautai or fishing 
party returned, the nets were hung up on the branches 
of trees near the shore, as they appear in the view of 
Fa-re harbour, inserted at page 414, vol. i. Besides the 
herring, hand, and salmon nets, they had a number of 
others, adapted to particular places, or kinds of fish. 
Next to the net, the spear was most frequently used. 
It was variously formed, according to the purpose for 
which it was designed. Since their intercourse with 
foreigners, the best spears have been made with iron, 
always barbed, but only on one side. Two or three small 
spear-heads were occasionally fastened to a single handle. 
Another kind of spear, in frequent use, was entirely of 
wood. Nine, ten, or twelve pointed pieces of hard wood, 
six or eight inches long, were fastened to a handle, 
from six to eight feet in length. When using this, they 
generally waded into the sea as high as the waist, and, 
standing near an opening between the rocks of coral, or 
near the shore, and watching the passage of the fish, 
darted the spear, sometimes with one hand, but more 
