prefer tackling them to a bird like Nymphicus. Judging by the care and watchfulness of the birds especially towards their young, I believe unguarded nests would be the exception and opportunity to rob such unmolested would be few and far between. Besides snakes have been present and plentiful since time immemorial and had no effect on numbers in the old days. Rats may be a pest but this I doubt. Undoubtedly the large grey ship's rate (Rattus rattus?) would attack even adult birds in a hollow or elsewhere at night, but to the best of my knowledge this species is entirely absent. Natives declare it is entirely absent and I am inclined to think they are correct as nowhere on the island did I see coconuts rat holed in the manner common to all other islands where ship's rats are present. The only rat present is the native indigenous rate (specimens sent to Mammal Dept. name unknown to me) which also has been present from time immemorial on Uvea and did not influence numbers in past times. Also this rate is in no way plentiful enough to cause it to attack birds for lack of food and it appears to be a purely vegetable feeder. In fact it is not even common and was difficult to obtain for collections (the mouse is common) and its usual habitat is not forest but in and about gardens and coconut areas where natives are cutting nuts to make copra. A further proof of its small numbers and the absence of the large grey ship's rate is the fact that natives all over the island make copra by merely splitting the nuts open and turning them face up in rows on the ground or hanging them on fronds of young palms, along sloping trunks of palms, logs, or anywhere close handy to where they were picked up and split, here, there and every-