-151- birds. Peale stopped at Gente Hermosa on Feb. 3, 1841, and says "Scarcely any marine birds were seen, which is very singular and unaccountable unless they have been driven away by the great number of enormous land crabs, which are known to devour the eggs and young: these crabs are larger here than any we have seen elsewhere--and the birds are fewer than they are even where inhabited by man." He mentions no land birds at all. Wilkes (IV, p. 18) says pigeons were observed on this island. The single specimen of Pealea lineata obtained by Peale on Upolu (but of which Beck got a "boatload" somewhere in the Pacific), was secured by a native, who said they breed high in the mountains, in holes. Whitmee says (P. Z. S., 1873, 153) the former habit of snaring pigeons (in Samoa) was going out of favor, "in consequence of the ease with which the birds may be shot." Cheap firearms were evidently being introduced among the natives at that time, though these were later taken away from them by the Germans, when they took over Savaii and Upolu. Mason Mitchell (Birds of Samoa, 1909) says pigeons are increasing since the natives have had their guns taken from them.