34. animals are rare and the people live so largely on fish that a meat hunger exists and is satisfied in this way. Circumstantial evidence certainly points to such being the case as all have tribes of dogs and careful inquiry to avoid arousing suspicion as to the real reason on the questions pointed to each man's number of dogs remaining more or less the same in numbers. As these have to be fed occasionally if not regularly and they are not as a race fond of animals, in fact are very cruel to them like most natives, I cannot imagine the dogs being kept for no useful purpose on an island like this where food is scarce at many times of the year beside being difficult to produce and most of the main crop, taru, unsuited for storage like yams. It is noticeable also that the dogs are in better condition than is usually the case with native owned dogs. Also rice along with fish is commonly fed to them and this rice must be paid for by themselves and probably by the dog later in another way. These dogs often without their masters join in packs and hunt in the swamps and doubtless kill numbers of rails, though for the energy and time wasted by the dogs in this pursuit the number is exceeding small. Odd natives are said to have well trained bird catching dogs which do not maul the birds but trap them in their paws. This is mostly legend as I tried the owners and their reputedly good dogs but not a single successful capture was made though a few badly mauled flightless young were caught. Probably in time past good dogs did exist but the forty pounds of dog made more appeal to the owners than a half a pound of poultry, and the bird in the hand seemed a better proposition all round. I did see several instances of ducks being caught thus and one of Porphyrio and doubtless numbers of unrecorded instances occur. It