8. At other times of the year certain localities have a few mosquitoes but the great bulk of them (98%) disappear. During the long dry spells plagues of fleas appear on the sandy deposit bank along the lagoon margin where 80% of the inhabi- tants live permanently, though some move further east at this season to temporary homes. At such times plagues of sand flies occur which often make it necessary to work under net protection and so on. The greater part of the food of the natives (because of infertile soil and lack of suitable areas for domestic animals) necessarily comes from the lagoon which teems with fish, conse- quently like all fish eating races the greater number have bad teeth. There are no wild pigs and few pigeons consequently few bush tracks outside roads to gardens and the natives know comparatively little about the bush of their island. They could tell you the nature of the floor of the lagoon and the best fish- ing areas and so on but could not tell you, nor in most cases find their way about the bush of the island where garden tracks are absent. They are consequently most unreliable observers as regards birds or bushlore though expert in sea or fish lore. The island could be made very much healthier by allowing the swamps to build up as they rapidly would especially under some legumosa, but owing to lack of food areas these swamps have to be constantly maintained as taru fields and this taru forms 60% or more of the vegetable food of the islanders. Dry taru could be grown in place of the swamp variety if arable land were available but this is not the case and the built up swamps would not be fertile enough for many decades. Yams and sweet potatoes grow very poorly in most areas, one or two small areas growing a medium