while
the heavy forest of the littoral was the haunt of thousands of pigeons.
These latter, though not so large as the Samoan, or Eastern Polynesian
bird, formed a very agreeable change of diet for us white traders, and
by walking about fifty yards from one's door, half a dozen or more could
be shot in as many minutes.

My nearest neighbour was a German, and one day when we were walking
along the beach towards his station, we noticed some hundreds of pigeons
fly down from the forest, settle on the margin of the water, and
drink with apparent enjoyment. The harbour at this spot was almost
land-locked, the water as smooth as glass without the faintest ripple,
and the birds were consequently enabled to drink without wetting their
plumage. My companion, who had lived many years in New Britain, told me
that this drinking of sea-water was common alike to both cockatoos and
pigeons, and that on some occasions the beaches would be lined with
them, the former birds not only drinking, but bathing as well, and
apparently enjoying themselves greatly.

During the following six months, especially when the weather was calm
and rainy, I frequently noticed pigeons and cockatoos come to the salt
water to drink. At first I thought that as fresh water in many places
bubbled up through the sand at low tide, the birds were really not
drinking the sea-water, but by watching closely, I frequently saw them
walk across these tiny runnels, and make no attempt to drink. Then
again, the whole of the Gazette Peninsula is out up by countless streams
of water; rain falls throughout the year as a rule, and as I have said,
there is always water percolating or bubbling up through the sand on
the beaches at low tide. What causes this unusual habit of drinking
sea-water?

Another peculiarity of the New Britain and New Ireland pigeon is its
fondness for the Chili pepper-berry. During three months of the year,
when these berries are ripe, the birds' crops are full of them, and very
often their flesh is so pungent, and smells so strongly of the Chili, as
to be quite uneatable.

* * * * *

On all of the low-lying islands of the Ellice, Kings-mill and Gilbert
Groups, a species of snipe are very plentiful. On the islands which
enclose the noble lagoon of Funafuti in the Ellice Group, they are to
be met with in great numbers, and in dull, rainy weather, an ordinarily
good shot may get thirty or forty in a few hours. One day, accompanied
by a native lad, I