We were perhaps four miles offshore. The palms of Iriatai lay like a low smudge along the horizon to the south of us. Singly and in twos and threes, the birds had left their roosting-places ashore and were flying this way and that over the sea, on the lookout for schools of fish. There were boobies and noddy terns in plenty, and a few of the small snow-white terns on which we kept a special watch. Suddenly, a quarter of a mile from us, a pair of noddies began to circle and dive; other birds came flapping hastily from all directions, and soon hundreds of them were wheeling and plunging through the air. "Bonito," said my companion, heading the canoe toward the school. "Let us make sure of not returning empty-handed!" It was an old game to me, but one of which I never wearied. We bent our backs and dug our paddles into the sea. The light canoe flew over the swells at a pace that left a wake of foam. I heard Marama drop his paddle; knew that he had turned to face the stern and taken the long bamboo pole from its place on the outrigger-supports. "_Hoe! Hoe!_" he cried. "Paddle your hardest--the school is turning, and in a moment we shall be among them!" Now the birds were all about us, and the sea was alive with the small fish on which birds and bonito feed, leaping and flashing by thousands in a frenzy of fear. A bonito leaped with a heavy plunge, close to the canoe--another--another; next moment an acre of sea was churned into foam as they fell upon their prey like wolves. I was in the bow place, and now my efforts were redoubled, for everything depended on keeping the canoe in rapid motion. Marama was seated on the stern thwart, facing the rear. In his right hand he held the butt of the rod, braced against the thwart. As the sun was bright, he had selected a dark lure,--a piece of greenish-black mother-of-pearl, fashioned in the shape of a four-inch minnow,--and it skittered along behind us in an extraordinary lifelike way. Cupping his left hand, Marama leaned over the side and began to throw water over the lure, five yards astern--a custom believed to attract the fish. I heard a shout--a fat bonito came tumbling through the air and thumped into the bottom of the canoe. Next instant the hook was free and over the side again, and the native boy was calling: "Paddle! Paddle! You are letting them draw away from us!" For a quarter of an hour, with aching muscles and a dry throat, I held the canoe on the outskirts of the school. At last the pace became too much for me, and I dropped my paddle as the rearmost birds left us in their wake.