NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 385 



dredging operations, and the examination of the Coral Eeefs at the 

 Islands called the Bindings. I was only badly provided with 

 dredging instruments, having in fact nothing but a few small nets 

 and some tangles, but even with these I managed to get a good 

 harvest of Crustacea, star-fishes, sea-urchins, mollusca, comatulre, 

 corals, and hydrozoa. The urchins, crabs and simple corals were 

 very interesting, having niany points of resemblance with the fauna 

 of the Barrier Reef of N. E. Australia. The Coral Reefs are small 

 but rich. I never saw such extraordinary numbers of sea-urchins. 

 Diadema setosum was literally in thousands on the rock at the 

 waters edge. The Molluscan fauna is different from that of tropical 

 Australia. Patella and Acnuea, are seldom seen, and only 

 occasionally a small Siphonaria ; but judge my surprise in finding 

 the rocks clustered with small specimens of our well known Port 

 Jackson Littorina tectaria. The vegetation on all these Islands is 

 that of all the Indian Archipelago and North Australia, and I 

 believe the same extends to the Indian Peninsula. I refer to 

 such species as Lalophyllum inophyllum, Terminalia catappa, 

 Sccevola Koenigii, Iporncea pes-ca/jrtm y Morinda citrifolia, Tliespizia 

 popidnea, Toumefortia sericea, Guilandina bonduc, Gmelina 

 asiatica, &c. Of course there is a little of the indigenous vegetation 

 as well. 



" In the course of my journeys I have not seen many wild animals. 

 Once when riding alone I started a black panther to the great 

 alarm of my pony. But the country swarms with wild elephants, 

 tigers, and several large serpents. Crocodiles in the rivers I 

 seldom saw, but scarcely a day passed on which some live animal 

 was not offered for sale at the Malay villages we passed. 



" The mines are for the most part worked by Chinese. A few 

 Malays mine for tin, but in a most inefficient manner, for though 

 the Chinese methods are bad enough, yet the Malays are far 

 inferior to them as miners. At the head of the Kiuta I came into 

 the country of the Sakeis. an aboriginal mountain people who are 

 only a small degree above our own Australian natives. In this 

 part of the country they are cpaite peaceful, though never liking to 

 remain long away from the wild mountains. Some of the tribes 



