-38- extracts from a recent press notice. The place involved is Hikueru or "Bird" Island, 6 x 3 miles in extent, well wooded except at east and southeast sides, and is the residence of the administrator of this district. It is also one of the ornitho- logically unknown islands. "The opening of the pearl diving season, the great event of the year in the French settlements, comes in July. Diving is not permitted for two years in succession at the same island. The various pearl islands are opened in rotation. This means that all gear, stocks of merchandise and building material must be taken to a new island each year--no small undertaking when it is remembered that the coral atoll, which in ordinary times sup- ports less than 200 persons, becomes in the diving season the abiding place of 2,500 or more. This year the open island is Hikueru, one of the Paumotu archipelago 400 miles to the east- ward of Tahiti. Already this lonely atoll is taking on a metro- politan appearance. The profits to be gained come not only from the pearl-shell won from the lagoon, but from the sale of all kinds of wares dear to the native heart and from the providing of entertainment to refresh the weary diver and his women folk after the labors of the day are over. The average native diver wins a good sum from the bottom of the lagoon and much of it goes on expensive silk dresses for his wife and daughters, on the delec- table canned goods of the "popaa" (white man) and on the "movies."