THE SEYCHELLES - ISLANDS OF THE GIANT PALMS 45 



couple of generations and had welcomed the German deep-sea expedition 

 on the Valdivia in 1899, ^^^ Dana Expedition in 1929, and the Swedish 

 Albatross Expedition in 1948, as he now welcomed us. We were allowed 

 to go where we liked and to shoot what we liked, with the exception of 

 his poultry. 



We climbed a narrow path through an exceedingly fertile, mixed forest 

 of coconuts and other palms, tropical deciduous trees, and giant ferns. In 

 a small grove of nutmeg trees we split up. One party concentrated its 

 attentions on minute animals — mites, spring-tails (primitive wingless 

 insects), tardigrada, and similar disregarded creatures whose importance 

 to zoogeography is often inversely proportional to their size. A second 

 party rummaged among dry-rotten tree stumps, withered leaves, and 

 mould for caecilians (which we failed to find), and for insects, centipedes 

 and millipedes, wood-lice, and earthworms, as well as in the abundant small 

 streams for aquatic insects, shrimps, and crabs. A third party, consisting 

 of Dr. Vols0e and myself, went hunting for birds, nimble lizards, and 

 dull-green geckos — a kind of lizard with adhesive toes which lives on 

 palm-leaves. 



Both then and on a similar expedition the next day we needed all our 

 energy as we climbed about the densely tangled palm forest in extremely 

 rugged and sometimes pathless and trackless country, at a temperature 

 and in an atmosphere as hot, oppressive, and humid as in a very small 

 bathroom when one is taking a very hot bath. 



Nevertheless, we succeeded in getting a fairly good collection of 

 reptiles and birds for preserving and stuffing. In addition to various other 

 endemic birds we found the brilliantly coloured honey-eaters (Cyanomitra 

 dussumieri), tiny, agile birds with long, curved beaks, rather like hum- 

 ning-birds, and we also obtained one of their elaborately woven nests with 

 side entrance. Of the three species of pigeon found, the endemic Seychelle 

 Pigeon Hollandais (Alectroenas pulcherrima) bears the prize; sky-blue 

 with a scarlet crown, it is surely one of the handsomest species of pigeon 

 in the world, as it is one of the rarest. There was also the lovely chalk- 

 white tern, Gygis alba monte, which we were greatly surprised to find 

 breeding in pairs at the top of large trees in the gorges — ■ a somewhat 

 unusual breeding place for a tern! The single egg is laid on the bare 

 branch without semblance of a nest, and strangely enough it seems a 

 rare thing for an &gg to roll off. 



Easily the commonest of the birds was the beautiful scarlet Madagascar 

 fody (Foudia madagascariensis) , which we had also observed in Mada- 

 gascar, from where it was imported by an over-astute business man. This 



