as I should like to do so; my
purpose is to describe a very remarkable fish called the _palu_, in the
capture of which these people are the most skilful. The catching of
flying-fish, however, bears somewhat on the subject of this article, as
the _palu_ will not take any other bait but a flying-fish, and therefore
a supply of the former is a necessary preliminary to _palu_ fishing.

Let us imagine, then, that the bait has been secured, and that a party
of _palu_-fishers are ready to set out from the little island of
Nanomaga, the smallest but most thickly populated of the Ellice Group.
The night must be windless and moonless, the latter condition being
absolutely indispensable, although, curiously enough, the fish will
take the hook on an ordinary starlight night. Time after time have I
tried my luck with either a growing or a waning moon, much to the
amusement of the natives, and never once did I get a _palu_, although
other nocturnal-feeding fish bit freely enough.

The tackle used by the natives is made of coconut cinnet, four or
eight-stranded, of great strength, and capable of holding a fifteen-foot
shark should one of these prowlers seize the bait. The hook is made of
wood--in fact, the same as is used for shark-fishing--about one inch and
a half in diameter, fourteen inches in the shank, with a natural curve;
the barb, or rather that which answers the purpose of a barb, being
supplied by a small piece lashed horizontally across the top of the end
of the curve. These peculiar wooden hooks are _grown_; the roots of a
tree called _ngiia_, whose wood is of great toughness, are watched when
they protrude from a bank, and trained into the desired shape; specimens
of these hooks may be seen in almost any ethnographical museum. To sink
the line, coral stones of three or four pounds weight are used, attached
by a very thin piece of cinnet or bark, which, when the fish is struck,
is always broken by its struggles, and falls off, thus releasing the
line from an unnecessary weight. It is no light task hauling in a thick,
heavy line, hanging straight up and down for a length of from
seventy-five to a hundred fathoms or more!

Each canoe is manned by four men, only two of whom usually fish, the
other two, one at the bow and the other at the stern, being employed in
keeping the little craft in a stationary position with their paddles.
If, however, there is not much current all four lower their lines, one
man working his paddle