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The Solomon Islands are situated between latitudes 5°S - 12*S and longitudes 155°E - 170°E extending some 900 miles in a south-easterly direction from Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. The six main islands are each roughly 100 miles long by 30 miles wide and form a double chain flanked by smaller islands with a total land area of 11,000 square miles and a population, in 1976, of slightly less than 200,000. The climate is tropical/oceanic with day temperatures around 30°C, high humidity and rainfall varying from 90-300 inches per annum. Sea conditions are generally slight with south-easterly winds prevailing from April to November, North-westerly winds the remainder of the year, with the likelihood of cyclonic conditions in the latter period.

At the time of the POBSP visit, cats (Felis domestica), dogs (Canis familiaris), and pigs (Sus scrofa) were being raised by the natives. Comments in Ward (1967) and by Lamont (1867) suggest that the pigs may have been introduced to Tongareva in 1853 from the ship wrecked vessel Chatham. Rats (Rattus sp.) were numerous in 1965, but as no specimens were collected their identity is unknown. Lamont (1867) stated that in 1853 "... [the natives] had never seen an animal larger than a very small rat, that lives principally in the cocoa-nut trees " Lamont's description suggests that the rats on Tongareva are Rattus elegans, a species widely distributed on the Pacific Islands.

Christmas island3, the largest atoll in the world in terms of subaerial surface area, is located 200 km north of the equator in the equatorial dry zone (Schott, 1933). The atoll is influenced by nearly constant 4 m/sec easterly winds and an average annual precipitation of 873 mm unevenly distributed in time (Jenkin and Foale, 1968). The shape of this southernmost of the northern Line Islands is like an elongated lobster claw with pinchers open to the northwest containing a semi-circular lagoon. Two passes, each nearly 2 km wide, connect the main lagoon to the ocean. Numerous subrectangular shaped hypersaline lakes are found to the east of the main lagoon as well as centrally along the elongated "am" which extends 18 km to the southeast. Along the southeastern margin of the lagoon, the lakes are more numerous, and narrow channels connect some of them to the lagoon.