276 Celebes. 



tan palms hanging from the trees, and turning and twisting 

 about on the ground, often in inextricable confusion. One 

 wonders at first how they can get into such queer shapes; 

 but it is evidently caused by the decay and fall of the trees 

 up which they have first climbed, after which they grow along 

 the ground till they meet with another trunk up which to 

 ascend. A tangled mass of twisted living rattan is therefore 

 a sign that at some former period a lai-ge tree has fallen there, 

 though there may be not the slightest vestige of it left. The 

 rattan seems to have unlimited powers of growth, and a, sin- 

 gle plant may mount up several trees in succession, and thus 

 reach the enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. 

 They much improve the appearance of a forest as seen from 

 the coast ; for they vary the otherwise monotonous tree-tops 

 with feathery crowns of leaves rising clear above them, and 

 each terminated by an erect leafy sj)ike hke a lightning-con- 

 ductor. 



The other most interesting object in the forest was a beau- 

 tiful palm, whose perfectly smooth and cylindrical stem rises 

 erect to more than a hundred feet high, with a thickness of 

 only eight or ten inches ; while the fan-shaped leaves which 

 compose its crown are almost complete circles of six or eight 

 feet diameter, borne aloft on long and slender petioles, and 

 beautifully toothed round the edge by the extremities of the 

 leaflets, which are separated only for a few inches from the 

 circumference. It is probably the Livistona rotundifolia of 

 botanists, and is the most complete and beautiful fan-leaf I 

 have ever seen, serving admirably for folding into water-buck- 

 ets and impromptu baskets, as well as for thatching and other 

 purposes. 



A few days afterward I returned to Menado on horseback, 

 sending my baggage round by sea, and had just time to pack 

 up all my collections to go by the next mail-steamer to Am- 

 boyna. I will now devote a few pages to an account of the 

 chief peculiarities of the zoology of Celebes, and its relation 

 to that of the surrounding countries. 



