species of birds as appear on the island. These swamps are also nowadays more or less communal, natives from dryer areas being allowed small blocks for production of taru for themselves, though considerable exchange in this food article is still carried on in the style of areas producing certain articles exchanging with other areas lacking such articles but possessing other necessary products or articles. All these swamp areas are more or less long narrow strips and are nowhere wide enough to have developed a type of bird life characteristic to the area of definitely swamp type birds though 1 species of rail is entirely confined to the swamps. The third definite species of soil is the deposited sand bank along the lagoon margin throughout the entire length of the island (a distance of between 3 and 4 miles). This bank in places shows 3 and 4 distinct waves or times of depositing, but is generally just a single wide bank 4 - 5 hundred years in width with a more or less gradual rise on the lagoon side and a steep rapid drop of from near 40 ft., or even 10 ft. only on places, to the swamp margins. This drop is steep and regular throughout the entire length of the banks and seems to point to the first hurricane having deposited a very large bank throughout the entire length and to its having been an exceptionally severe disturbance. Probably the whole bank at one time showed 3 and 4 regular waves of deposit but during the years the constant house building and other activites of the natives, the bulk of whom live on this ridge, has leveled out the undulations and densest population are the ones where no separate waves are visable, but areas where few villages or people are, show distinct waves up to NW being the direction of the worst and most frequent blows. This