130 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



bably is connected with that of the islands to the north, for I find Java is also 

 a habitat of several ferns that I have found. At Christmas I am to take holy 

 orders, and in April next to be left at Sans Christoval for a month or two. 

 During this time I also hope to visit all the southern Solomon Islands, and after 

 that to accompany Bishop Patterson on his annual visit to the other groups. 

 On my return, I hope to have something to write about that will interest you, 

 and perhaps some specimens to send. 



"The coco nut is planted, the banana, yam, taro, a sweet potato (not 

 Convolulus batatas), and a herbaceous plant used as a vegetable. There are 

 scarcely any native fruits, but several sorts of nuts. Bread fruit grows best in 

 the Banks's gi^oup. At one island of this group thirty varieties of yams are 

 named. In the Banks' Islands and northern New Hebrides, shell only is used 

 for adzes. In the Solomon Islands stone for adzes and knives. No pottery 

 is made at any. At Santa Cruz a loom is used in weaving their elegant mats, 

 and they seem, in other ways, more advanced than their neighbours. I 

 suppose that they use stone, for their word for iron is the Maori name for a 

 stone adze. I have only met with two tree feiTis, one a polypody and one a 

 marattia ; both are very common. Palms are very plentiful in the northern 

 islands of the Solomon group. The areca nut is chewed there and at Santa 

 Cruz, but they become fewer as we go south. I have not seen the areca in the 

 Banks' Islands, nor the sago in the New Hebrides, where indeed I have only 

 seen one palm beside the coco nut. A club moss and the fern Asplenium nidus, 

 common here (Norfolk Island), are found throughout these groups. It is possible 

 that the tree fern may be the same, I have not got a piece of the island fern 

 with me to compare. 



"The natives of the Solomon and Santa Cruz groups are very much more 

 civilized, although perhaps fiercer than the Banks' islanders. This is easily 

 accounted for by the difference of race of these islanders, — the Polynesian is an 

 active, energetic race, the Melanesian more indolent and uninventive. The 

 canoes of the Solomon Islands are beautiful in design and workmanship, and, 

 like their houses and weapons, highly ornamented. The only way of procuring 

 fire that I have heard of in use amongst them, is by rubbing one piece of 

 wood on another. M. J. Atkins." 



III.— GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. 



RHINOCEROS HORNS.— Letter from Edward Blyth, Esq., formerly 

 Curator of the Museum of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. 



"London, 16th March 1868. 

 "As in the first No. of your 'Journal' (p. 70), you called attention to some 

 remarks which I made, in the course of a discussion at one of the Scientific 

 Meetings of the Zoological Society, upon the occasional shedding or loss by 

 violence, followed by the renewal, of the horn or horns of a rhinoceros, I may 

 mention that the particular instance adduced was given upon the authority of 

 the Count Alexis Bobrensky, of Moscow ; and that my suspicion of the 

 occasional occurrence of such a phenomena arose from my obtaining the facial 

 portion of the head, with the two horns attached to the skin, of a recently killed 

 male of R. Sumatranus, which I supposed at the time to have been rather a 

 juvenile animal, from the small size of the horns. It was obtained in the 

 Yunzalia district of the province of Martaban, by means of a heavy falling 

 Stake, such as the natives set for tigers and other large game (as repre- 

 sented in C. J. Anderson's ' Lake Ngami' 2d edition, p. 258) ; and I was 

 already aware of the superb development which the horns of this small species 

 of rhinoceros attain in some instances, as exemplified by the beautiful specimen 

 of an anterior horn in the British Museum, upon which Dr Gray founded his 

 su]iposed R. Crossii (Proc. Zool. .Soc. 1S54, p. 250, where a figure of it is 

 supplied). Tliat horn, which is very highly curved, measures 32 inches along 

 its front, and is 17 inches in span from head to tip. I have also recently seen 



