Memoir, Issue 3order of the Trustees, 1900 - Natural history |
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Common terms and phrases
abdomen aperture apex arched atoll Australian Museum basal base Bleeker breadth broad Caledonia canoes carapace Cephalothorax CHARLES HEDLEY clothed coconut collected colour columella Conch coral Crust Dana dark brown described diameter distal dorsal ectoderm Ellice Group Ellice Islanders example Exped fathoms Fiji Fische fish Funafuti Funafuti lagoon Garrett genus Gilbert Islands Gill granules groove Guinea Günther Hebrides Hedley hook inches islet Journ lagoon lagoon beach Lamarck lateral legs length Lifu Linne lobes longitudinal margin median Melvill and Standen narrow Niutao Nukufetau Nukulailai obliquely obtained outer Pacific pale palm Palu pandanus Paumotus Plate Polynesian polyps posterior Rainb reef Reeve ridges rounded Samoa shell short side slightly smooth Sowerby species specimen spicules spines surface Sydney tentacles THOMAS WHITELEGGE Tonga transverse tree Tryon tubercles U.S. Explor upper Vaitupu ventral Whitelegge whorl yellow Zool
Popular passages
Page 291 - The short strings so produced are " amo," two of which are laid together, one projecting half its length beyond the other, and these are rolled together as before. A third string is applied to the second, so that one end lies in a fork between the end of the first and the middle of the second, while the other end projects by half its length beyond the end of the second, and the whole is again rubbed. By the similar addition of amo strings the strand continuously grows. Two such strands are again...
Page 267 - ... pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file; a hole is then bored in the middle, the drill being no other than the first stone they pick up that has a sharp corner ; this they fix into the end of a piece of bamboo, and turn it between the hands like a chocolate mill; when the shell is perforated and the hole sufficiently wide, a small file of coral is introduced, by the application of which the hook is in a short time completed, few costing the artificer more...
Page 262 - The instruments they use for this purpose, which they call hooo, are nothing more than pickets or stakes of different lengths, according to the depth they have to dig. These are flattened and sharpened to an edge at one end ; and the largest have a short piece fixed transversely, for pressing it into the ground with the foot. "With these, though they are not more than from two to four inches broad, they dig and plant ground of many acres in extent.
Page 235 - With Tables and Sections. Imperial 8vo, cloth, 6s. ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES and QUERIES. For the Use of Travellers and Residents in Uncivilized Lands. Drawn up by a Committee appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Fcap. 8vo, cloth, leather back, 5s.
Page 54 - In describing the same rite, Turner says :* " Meat offerings were also laid on the altars, accompanied by songs and dances in honour of the god. While these ceremonies were going on all the population, except the priests and their attendants, kept out of sight.
Page 16 - ... growth of the Madrepora palmata ;' and probably the entire zoophyte extended over an area twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. The fragments are three to four inches thick, and thirty square feet in surface. As a key to the explanation of the peculiarities here observed, it may be remarked that the tides in the Paumotus are two to three feet, and about Enderby's Island five to six feet in height.
Page 266 - Ckelone midas are formed into scoops " sesefonu," for paring the kernel of coconuts. No two of the series collected at Funafuti are quite alike. Variations selected for illustration show — the former, (fig. 28) a double-ended scoop, an ounce and a half in weight, an inch broad, and seven and a half long ; the latter, (fig. 29) two and a half ounces in weight, eleven inches in length, and one and a half in width, at one end it tapers to a point and at the other is bevelled three inches on the concave...
Page 267 - These are made of all sizes, and used to catch various kinds of fish with great success. The manner of making them is very simple, and every fisherman is his own artificer : the shell is first cut into square pieces, by the edge of another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of the hook by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file ; a hole is then bored in the middle ; the drill being no other than...
Page 57 - They do not, however, herd indiscriminately. If you peep into a Samoan house at midnight, you will see five or six low oblong tents pitched (or rather strung up) here and there throughout the house. They are made of native-cloth, five feet high, and close all round down to the mat.
Page 42 - An occasional log drifts to their shores, and at some of the more isolated atolls, where the natives are ignorant of any land but the spot they inhabit, they are deemed direct gifts from a propitiated deity.