Pacific Nature

Notes

Conducted By Raimanu

No. I—The Mongoose TN Fiji one soon comes up against A the fact that there are no indigen ous land mammals in the Group.

Unless, perhaps, one allows that there is a native rat —a point on which opinions differ. Anyhow, there is one imported mammal which is all too common—the Mongoose.

So far this particular pest is common only on the two main islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Even the natives seem not to have tried to carry them from island to island.

Though I remember a story told me by an old man once. He had been living in a village on Kaba Point, and had trapped a number of mongoose and put them in a cage to take back to his home in Lau. Fortunately the then Tui Nayau boarded the boat on which he was travelling, and promptly ordered the cage and all therein carried ashore—this was at Moturiki —and cast on a big fire that was

burning there.

Just how far they are going to multiply on the two main islands is not clear. So far they seem to have no natural enemies to keep them in control, and some believe that they are more numerous to-day than they were a few years ago.

Old residents consistently blame the mongoose for the disappearance of many species of birds once common.

So far as the ground nesting species go this is easily seen when one com pares an island in Lau, with its swamp hens, land rails and sooty rails, with Vanua Levu, where these are no longer found. The black duck, too, is very much less numerous in mon goose areas.

Just how far tree-nesting species of birds have diminished, and how far the mongoose is responsible, are points difficult to estimate; but that the little animal does climb trees is without doubt.

A Fijian told me once of watching a mongoose climb a small coconut tree. Getting up was easy; but how to get down? As my friend watched, he saw the animal gather in his paws a bundle of the vulo, the fibrous cloth around the bases of the leaves. When the bundle was big enough the mon goose simply dropped from the tree and used the vulo as a cushion to break its fall.

R. A. Derrick mentions in his “Fiji Islands” thb catholic appetite of this

animal, which includes a fondness for mangrove crabs. Usually the mon goose goes for the small crab, called kuka by the natives. It uses an in genious method for catching them.

A paw is inserted into the crab hole in the mud, much as Australian schoolboys have been known to put a finger down a yabby hole (gilgie in some parts), so that the creature may nip it; then the paw is drawn smartly out and the crab flipped on to the mud, to be picked up and eaten.

My friend the Fijian even described the agonised look on the face of the mongoose as the crab nipped it. How ever, there was at least one occasion when the hunter met his match. One day a woman came back from the mangroves with a big crab—called qari—and grasped firmly in its claw by the head was a very dead mon goose.

An epidemic of mumps among school children in Rarotonga during November closed all schools, cinemas and public gatherings for several weeks.