Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/333

Rh THE TONGA ISLANDS. 267 as in our parts of the world, but rather between the size of a mouse and a rat> and much of the same colour : they live chiefly upon such ve- getable substances as sugar-cane, bread-fruit, &c. : they constitute an article of food with the lower orders of people, but who are not al- lowed to make a sport of shooting them, this privilege being reserved for chiefs, matabooles, and mooas *. The plan and regulations of the game of fanna gooma (rat-shooting) are as follow. A party of chiefs and others having resolved to go rat-shooting, some of their attendants are ordered to procure and roast some cocoa-nut, which being done, and the chiefs having in- formed them what road they mean to take, they proceed along the appointed road, chewing the roasted nut very finely as they go, and spitting, or rather blowing, a little of it at a time out of their mouths with considerable force, but so as not to scatter the particles far from each other ; for if they were widely distributed, the rat would not be tempted to stop and pick them lip, and if the pieces were too large, he would run away with one piece instead of stopping to eat his fill. The bait is thus distributed, at moderate distances, on each side of the road, ject in the second volume.
 * For a description of these ranks in society, see the Sub-