Attack Vegetables
p. 45 · Read in the full issue
Balance Of Nature
Driven From Palms, Rats Attack Vegetables
Papeete, May 30.
TO protect the coconut palms against rats—which creep up the trunks and attack the young nuts —the French Government of Tahiti insisted that all the palms should be banded with non-corrosive metals.
The result was that the rats — unable to cling to the smooth metal bands—could not climb the trees; and the output of copra from the Territory perceptibly increased.
The defeated and hungry rats thereupon sought a new source of food supply, and have attacked the sweet potato gardens in such num bers as to become a public nuisance.
The community’s reply is to at tack the rats through a system of wholesale poisoning, so as to reduce their numbers. This is having some effect—but obviously the campaign must go on indefinitely, if the rats are to be held in check.
II Mr. and Mrs. Igor Allen, and their adopted Tahitian daugher, Ramine, who lived at Puunauia, Tahiti, for many years, have now settled down in their new home at Wailupe, in Hawaii.