vili INTRODUCTION 
every year. Several are even known to bloom four times in the - 
year, while on the other hand some cauliflorous trees only blossom 
every two or three years. Natives, whose information in other 
cases proved trustworthy, declared that certain ones only flower 
once in seven years. 
The number of different species to be found in these forests is 
immense and may be computed to average at least 400 to 500 
distinet species to the square mile. Among these are to be found 
a large number of valuable economie trees, such as cam-wood, 
ebony, rubbers and mahoganies of enormous size, scented and 
otherwise. The state of age gradation among all such trees is 
more satisfactory too in this district than that in the greater 
part of the Protectorate. 
The annual rainfall, carefully kept during my tenure of office, 
averages 175 inches, and the humidity may be a contributory 
cause to the extraordinary large number of cauliflorous trees. 
The unusual rainfall and the heavy dews, which last all through 
the dry season, act too as protective agents in rendering impossible 
destruction by forest fires. 
A very considerable part of the district has at one time or 
other been under cultivation. The system of farming consists in 
roughly clearing the land in January and February, by cutting 
and burning the smaller growth, while the great trees are left 
standing. This has, however, affected the type of forest less 
than would otherwise have been the case, owing partly to the 
scanty population, about four to the square mile, and also to the 
large number of trees, which, according to the superstition of 
the people, must neither be destroyed nor planted, but left 
untroubled by human interference. A considerable part of the 
land may be regarded as virgin bush, and is perhaps the only: 
important survival of that vast primeval belt, which once 
extended over the greater part of South Nigeria. 
In order to be convinced that the forests of Oban are to a 
great extent true primary forest one has only to leave a native 
path in the remote parts of the interior and cut one's way for a 
short distance through the tangle of lianes, often of the girth of 
our Northern tree-trunks, which hang between giant boles, 200 to 
300 feet high, and, in the case of cotton trees, over 80 feet in cir- 
cumference. Oncethe path has been lost sight of, one may wander 
for days without coming across a trace of human habitation. 
P. AMAURY TALBOT. 
