386 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



{Herpetolitha Umax). The Mushroom corals cover the bottom in 

 places in such large quantities, that a cart-load of them might be 

 picked up in a very short time ; I have nowhere seen them so 

 common. 



I visited one of the Nutmeg Plantations in Great Banda. 

 The nutmeg is the kernel of a fruit very like a peach in appear- 

 ance and which makes an excellent sweetmeat when preserved 

 in sugar. The owner of the plantation, a very wealthy Malay 

 native of Banda, told me that about one male tree to every 

 fifty females was planted on the estate ; he had a superstition 

 that if a nutmeg seed was planted with its flatter side upper- 

 most, it would be more likely to produce a male seedling. 



Formerly, before the Dutch Government renounced its mono- 

 poly of the growth of nutmegs in the Moluccas, the trees were 

 strictly and most jealously confined to the Island of Great 

 Banda. The utmost care was taken that no seeds fit for ger- 

 mination should be carried away from the island, for fear of 

 rival plantations being formed elsewhere ; seeds were, however, 

 often smuggled out. 



The Government destroyed the Nutmeg trees on all the 

 other islands of the group. It was, however, found necessary to 

 send a Commission every year to uproot the young nutmeg 

 trees sown on these islands by the Fruit-Pigeons, called Nut- 

 crackers by the Dutch residents {Garpophaga concinna). 



The various Fruit-Pigeons must have played a most im- 

 portant part in the dissemination of plants, and especially trees, 

 over the wide region inhabited by them. Sir Charles Lyell,* 

 referring to the transportation of seeds by the agency of birds, 

 noted especially this transportation effected by pigeons, and 

 quotes Captain Cook's Voyages to the effect that at Tanna 

 " Mr. Foster shot a pigeon," (obviously a Garpophaga), in whose 

 craw was a wild nutmeg. t 



At the Admiralty Islands very large numbers of a Fruit- 

 Pigeon (CarpopJiaga rhodinolosma), were shot by the officers of 

 the "Challenger/' Their crops were full of fruits of various 

 kinds, all of winch I had failed to find, or reach in the growing 



* " Principles of Geology," 10th Edition, Vol. II, p. 69. 



t " Cook's Second Voyage," Vol. II, p. 69. London, Strachan, 1777. 



