AND OBSEBYED AT THE ADMIBALTY ISLANDS. 79 



latter. The fan-palms appeared identical with one procured in 

 the Aru Islands. I saw no rattans : but they grow in the 

 islands ; for in one canoe I saw a rattan stem in use as a cable. 

 A young palm with prickly leaf-stalks, a dried specimen of which 

 is sent, may prove to be of a further species. The cocoa-nut 

 palm is, as has been before mentioned, abundant on the inhabited 

 islands, where young trees are planted by the inhabitants with 

 great care around their villages, each young tree being protected 

 from the numerous pigs or other injury by means of a neat wicker- 

 work cylindrical fence. On the uninhabited islands cocoa-nut 

 palms are occasionally, but not abundantly, present. The natives, 

 however, plant the palms on uninhabited islands ; for I found four 

 or five young trees planted on Observatory Island, each carefully 

 girt at its base with a circle of stones. Cocoa-nut palms grow also 

 on the mainland, on the tops of the hill-ridges, mostly in clumps, 

 as if one or a few trees originally established had seeded others 

 around. There can be no doubt that these plants were planted 

 by natives ; and most probably the spot occupied by each clump 

 was inhabited at some time. This part of the main island may 

 formerly have been more thickly inhabited than it at present 

 appears to be. I saw no dwarf varieties of the cocoa-nut; 

 the trees are all of the common tall kind. The Areca palm 

 is abundant almost everywhere on the main island. 



The sago-palm grows, as usual, socially, in swamps ; as usual, 

 also, there is a very large preponderance of immature examples 

 which have not yet begun to form a stem. Indeed it was 

 only in one swamp that any stemmed specimens were met with 

 at all. No doubt the natives lose no time in felling all the ma- 

 ture trees in spots easily accessible from the coast, and very 

 often cut them before they are mature, for fear of their falling 

 into other hands. A Cycad is abundant, and grows occasionally 

 to a height of 30 feet, looking like a palm. 



The three species of Pandanus met with are identical with the 

 three found at the Aru Islands. The two larger ones were com- 

 mon and striking features in the aspect of the coast-vegetation. 

 I saw no bamboos in the islands, and they are not in general use 

 amongst the natives ; but I saw a few chunam boxes made of 

 bamboo joints. 



Amongst the large forest trees an enormous Ficus, with the 

 usual wonderful compound stem, was the most striking. A tree 

 also with the vertical plant-like roots, a familiar phenomenon in 



