46 Botanical Notices from Java, 



nearest existing reptiles would point to its oviparity as the more 

 probable kind of generation ; but the genus Zootoca and the Viper 

 show that analogy is no safe guide in such a question ;" " and the 

 European black and yellow Salamander of Bohemia once brought 

 forth young ones half as long as the mother, either in the Doctor's 

 pocket or College rooms -" therefore with such evidence it now" 

 appears fair to conclude that the Ichthyosauri were viviparous. 



Montague House, Lambridge, Bath, Dec. 9th, 1845. 

 MHi^ ■■ ■ — -■ 



IX. — Journey through Java, desciiptive of its Topography and 

 Natural History. By Dr. Fr. Junghuhn*. 



[Continued from vol. xvi. p. 466.} "^ ••^" IfJ^^^'^ ' 



Journey to the Extinct Volcano of Tjermai, 

 The author saw here large woods of Tectonice. The Tectonia 

 grandis is one of the few tropical trees which occur in company, and 

 expel all others. But it does not afford the cool shade, nor form 

 such a beautiful vaulted foliage as other tropical trees ; no Liane 

 chmbs up its boughs ; its stems, destitute of bark, rise naked and 

 barren, with only here and there a single leaf. The ground beneath 

 it is covered only with dry grass ; no Pothos, no Orchidece or Scitami- 

 necB here raise their succulent stalks. Yet here also man appears to have 

 contributed much to the barrenness of these woods ; for the Japanese, 

 in order to drive away the tigers and to make the soil cultivable, 

 yearly set fire to large districts of the grass Alang-alang (at the 

 driest season), by which also the leaves of the Tectonia are at the 

 same time singed. When the author had reached the coffee-planta- 

 tions, he entered at the same time upon the lower Hraits of the forest 

 tract, which is everywhere divided by sharp lines from the lower cul- 

 tivated country. With the increase of cultivation the extent of the 

 forests is more and more narrowed. The author saw thousands of 

 trees felled in the coffee-plantations ; a few being left standing wide 

 apart, to shade the young coffee-plants. " We thus explain," he 

 observes, *' the sharply-defined limits by which the woods, almost on 

 all the higher mountains in Java, are separated from the lower cul- 

 tivated declivities, — a limit which is continually forced higher and 

 higher by the advance of cultivation, which however on most of the 

 mountains begins at a height of from 3000 to 4000 feet. At a di- 

 stance, therefore, the upper half of such mountains appears of a 

 dark bluish green, while the lower half has a bright greenish yellow 

 aspect. 



" We are inclined to think that the forests in Java originally ex- 

 tended to the foot of the mountains, and indeed to the sea-coast, and 

 that they have been extirpated up to their i)resent elevation solely by 

 cultivation. We frequently observe forests cease suddenly in abrupt, 

 sharply-defined limits on the lower side, on soft acclivities, whose 



lui :j * From the Botanisclie Zeitung, Sept. 19th, 1845. 



