_Adopted Children._--The number of children seen in a family was small, occasioned, to a great extent, by the bad management and consequent mortality of children, and also a custom which prevailed of parting with their children to friends who wished to adopt them. The general rule was for the husband to give away his child to his sister. She and her husband gave, in return for the child, some foreign property, just as if they had received so many fine mats or native cloth. The adopted child was viewed as "_tonga_" and was, to the family who adopted it, a channel through which native property (or "_tonga_") continued to flow to that family from the parents of the child. On the other hand, the child was to its parents a source of obtaining foreign property (or "_oloa_") from the parties who adopted it, not only at the time of its adoption, but as long as the child lived. Hence the custom of adoption was not so much the want of natural affection as the sacrifice of it to this systematic facility of traffic in native and foreign property. Hence, also, parents may have had in their family adopted children, and their own real children elsewhere. _Employments._--Girls always, and boys for four or five years, were under the special charge of the mother, and followed her in domestic avocations. The girl was taught to draw water, gather shell-fish, make mats and native cloth. The boy after a time followed his father, and soon became useful in planting, fishing, house-building, and all kinds of manual labour. Boys were also accustomed to club together, and wander about the settlement, the plantation, or in the bush. If they fell in with a fallen cocoa-nut one boy would sit down and name some to come and join him in eating it, and to the rest he would call out, "Go and catch butterflies." Hence one who is excluded from eating anything nice is called _a butterfly-catcher_. If they called at the residence of one of themselves, then perhaps the lad of that house would select some to have food with him there, and call them "cocoa-nut princes," and the rest he would send off, calling them "cocoa-nut pigs." The latter would go off offended, and vow to each other never again to be friendly with that stingy, _stunted_ fellow! The following is a translated specimen of one of the old songs chanted for the diversion of children, or to lessen the tedium of a long canoe journey. I do not tamper with an exact translation by any attempt at rhythm or rhyme, but simply give the thoughts as they stand, and as a fair translation would explain them.:-- 1. Mailesaeia and Mailetupengia were married. They had two children, and these were their names, The boy Tulifauiave, and the girl Sinataevaeva. _Chorus_--Aue! or _wonderful!_ 2. They were unkind to their children, and deserted them; They did not wish to have children. etc.