generally being found all over them at low tide and in the margins at high tide or in scrubs and forests adjacent. Sometimes even at high tide individuals will be heard call- ing or seen far out in the mangroves at high tide, often in an isolated bush with 3 and 4 feet of water under them. They range much wider and into areas in which their foster parents are never found, often appearing along absolute beaches and on dead trees thrown up by the sea on sand spits etc. considerable distances from vegetation. They range out along the islands of the western chains both in south and north and are said to be even plentiful along the southern islands of the lagoon. I saw them along the northern arms but they were not plentiful, possibly even in smaller ratio than on the mainland. According to local accounts numbers do not vary and during my stay they did not. I think local accounts are reliable as the bird is nowhere common and was unknown to 90 per cent of the natives in all areas except the tidal lagoons where it was better known to native resi- dents. I had great difficult getting the native name for the species in the Fayuwai district and only old men there had any idea of it but were in doubt. Though the bird is present in the area and quite up to numbers one would expect, many even old natives had never seen it and many had only once seen it before. This was probably not so much due to its scarcity as to the poor quality of Uvean bushmanship, but if the species were subject to sudden increases in numbers as on Mare it would force its presence under the notice of local natives, especially the women working in gardens regularly. Actually women knew more of it than men but few women had seen it more than once before and to many it was entirely unknown,