THE ARU ISLANDS. 371 



huddled together out of the way, and the same was the case at 

 Wanumbai. The men had wrist ornaments, closely similar in 

 make to those common in New Guinea, at Humboldt Bay, and 

 at the Admiralty Islands. These are broad band-shaped wristlets 

 made of plaited fibres (of Pandanus ?), yellow and black worked 

 into a pattern. 



These bracelets of the Aru Islanders were ornamented with 

 European shirt buttons in lieu of the small ground-down shells 

 (Neritina) used at New Guinea and in the Admiralty Islands for 

 the same purpose. The buttons came, no doubt, from the Chinese 

 traders, and probably the natives thought they were intended 

 for this purpose, as they look not so very much unlike the shells. 

 The men had a number of leaf buckets full of sago, ready pre- 

 pared, and we saw their rude kneading-trough and strainers of 

 palm fibre, in a swamp close by. 



The trees are excessively high and large in the Aru forests. To 

 a botanical collector, with no time to spare, such a forest is a hope- 

 less problem. Only the few low-growing plants can be gathered, 

 and the orchids and ferns that hang on the stems low down, 

 especially along the coast. A few palms can be cut down. The 

 flowers and fruits of the trees, the main features of the vege- 

 tation, and those most likely to prove of especial interest, are far 

 out of reach. 



The trees cannot be cut down. It would take a day at least 

 to fell one. The only hope is to lie on one's back and look for 

 blossoms or fruit with a binocular glass, and then try and shoot 

 a branch down. Very often, however, the trees are far too high 

 for that, and then the matter must be given up altogether. 



Growing on some of the high trees in Wokan Island, I saw 

 most enormous Stag's-horn ferns (Platy cerium). I certainly 

 imagined they must be at least eight feet in the height of the 

 fronds. I could not reach any but very small specimens. 



A species of Fig, a wide-spreading tree with large leaves, 

 seemed to me remarkable, because the fruit was borne only on 

 the pendent aerial roots. A tree of another species of fig- 

 amused me, because its pendent roots had wound spirally around 

 the parent stem of the tree itself, and had nearly choked it. It 

 eeemed just that a fig, so accustomed to choking other trees, 



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