rain, just like the long thin brittle legs of a dead crab. Again, were such an enchanter to eat any of the edible kinds of locusts, it seems obvious to the Kai that locusts would devour the crops over which the imprudent wizard had recited his spells. Above all, people who are concerned in planting fields must on no account eat pork; because pigs, whether wild or tame, are the most deadly enemies of the crops, which they grub up and destroy; from which it follows, as surely as the night does the day, that if you eat pork while you are at work on the farm, your fields will be devastated by inroads of pigs.(325) (M75) However, these precautions are not the only measures which the Kai people adopt for the benefit of the yams and the taro. “In the opinion of the natives various games are important for a proper growth of the field-fruits; hence these games may only be played in the time after the work on the fields has been done. Thus to swing on a long Spanish reed fastened to a branch of a tree is thought to have a good effect on the newly planted yams. Therefore swinging is practised by old and young, by men and women. No one who has an interest in the growth of his crop in the field leaves the swing idle. As they swing to and fro they sing swing-songs. These songs often contain only the names of the kinds of yams that have been planted, together with the joyous harvest-cry repeated with variations, ‘I have found a fine fruit!’ In leaping from the swing, they cry ‘_Kakulili_!’ By calling out the name of the yams they think to draw their shoots upwards out of the ground. A small bow with a string, on which a wooden flag adorned with a feather is made to slide down (the Kai call the instrument _tawatawa_), may only be used when the yams are beginning to wind up about their props. The tender shoots are then touched with the bow, while a song is sung which is afterwards often repeated in the village. It runs thus: ‘_Mama gelo, gelowaineja, gelowaineja; kikí tambai, kíki tambai._’ The meaning of the words is unknown. The intention is to cause a strong upward growth of the plants. In order that the foliage of the yams may sprout luxuriantly and grow green and spread, the Kai people play cat’s cradle. Each of the intricate figures has a definite meaning and a name to match: for example ‘the flock of pigeons’ (_Hulua_), ‘the Star,’ ‘the Flying Fox,’ ‘the Sago-palm Fan,’ ‘the Araucaria,’ ‘the Lizard and the Dog,’ ‘the Pig,’ ‘the Sentinel-box in the Fields,’ ‘the Rat’s Nest,’ ‘the Wasp’s Nest in the Bamboo-thicket,’ ‘the Kangaroo,’ ‘the Spider’s Web,’ ‘the Little Children,’ ‘the Canoe,’ ‘Rain and Sunshine,’ ‘the Pig’s Pitfall,’ ‘the Fish-spawn,’ ‘the Two Cousins, Kewâ and Imbiâwâ, carrying their dead Mother to the Grave,’ etc. By spinning large native acorns or a sort of wild fig they think that they foster the growth of the newly-planted taro; the plants will ‘turn about and broaden.’ The game