-34- (27) and (27a.) GENERAL NOTES ON TUAMOTU GROUP. Byron (about 1765) visited the King George Ids. (Takapoto and Takaroa), and found on one of them "a great number of parrots and paroquets, and several other birds, with a beautiful kind of dove that was exceedingly tame." The flies were very troublesome here. What the "parrots" and "paroquets" were is mere guess-work now; there are no modern records from either of these islands, though Townsend visited the near neighbor Tikei for a few hours. Carteret, in 1767, visited one of the Duke of Gloucester Islands (either Amamuraro, Amamurunga, or Nukutapipi), and found "There were many birds upon it so tame, that they suffered themselves to be taken by hand." Doubtless sea-birds. Bougainville, in March, 1768, found "thousands of birds were hovering about the shore" of Akiaki, which was covered with "level sand", with the interior thickly wooded. Commerson was his naturalist. Cook, in 1769, found near (s. e. of) Reao, "a Large flock of birds; they had brown backs and white Bellies. They fly and make a noise like Stearings [= Terns], and are shaped like them, only something larger. Saw likewise some black Sheerwaters and Several Man-of-war birds." (April 2, 1769.) On April 3, he saw two "Birds like Albetrosses; they were all white except the Tips of their wings