Post #509078 by Trader Tom on Fri, Feb 5, 2010 5:40 AM

THE NEST OF FATU-LIVA

Above: The nest of a Fatu-Liva, a curious bird that lays square eggs. The picture appeared in The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas, published in 1921 by G.P. Putnam and Sons.

The Cruise of the Kawa told the story of the explorations of Walter E. Traprock and his band of compatriots in the South Pacific (the Kawa was their boat). The highlight of their adventure was the discovery of the Filbert Islands, a group of previously uncharted Pacific islands.

It was on the Filbert Islands that the explorers discovered the Fatu-Liva. The caption to the above picture reads:

This is without question the most extraordinary picture which has ever been taken of any natural history subject. It corroborates in most convincing manner the author's claim to the discovery of the wonderful fatu-liva bird with its unique gift of laying square eggs. Here we see the eggs themselves in all the beauty of their cubical form and quaint marking; here we see the nest itself, made of delicately woven haro and brought carefully from the tree's summit by its discoverer, Babai-Alova-Babai. An extremely interesting feature of the picture is the presence in the nest of lapa or signal-feather. By close observation, Mr. Whinney, the scientist of the expedition, discovered that whenever the mother-bird left the nest in search of food she always decorated her home with one of her wing feathers which served as a signal to her mate that she would return shortly, which she invariably did. Skeptics have said that it would be impossible to lay a square egg. To which the author is justly entitled to say: "The camera never lies."

Below: A fledgling Fatu-Liva, newly hatched from a square egg.

References:
Traprock, W.E. (1921). The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas. G.P. Putnam's Sons: pg.124.

I ran across this at

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/kawa.html

The Cruise of the Kawa: Wanderings in the South Seas was a tongue-in-cheek travel book presented to the public as the real-life adventures of Walter E. Traprock and his band of compatriots on the (non-existent) Filbert Islands in the South Pacific.

You can buy paperback reprint copies of this book on Amazon from Dodo Press.

• I just found the following thread which also discusses the book:
  http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=9191&forum=1&hilite=fatu%20liva

[ Edited by: Trader Tom 2010-02-05 05:44 ]