36 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION 



to a very large extent : on the mountains exist areas which bear only a low dry scrub, 

 growing out of the hard red subsoil. Such patches of endemic forest as do remain are 

 of a highly peculiar nature, largely composed of the famous " coco de mer" palm (Lodoicea 

 seychellarum) , which in a wild state is confined to this one island. 



Time allowed of only a very short trip to Praslin, which was made between Nov. 27 

 and Dec. 2 in the company of Mr R. P. Dupont, the Curator of the Botanic Station in 

 Mahe. We stayed in a house near Grande Anse : and were favoured throughout the time 

 with extremely fine weather. The best remaining piece of " coco de mer " forest, namely 

 that in the Vallee de Mai on the Cotes d'Or Estate, was easily accessible, and altogether 

 two days were devoted to collecting there. The route by which we went to it leads at 

 first along a valley, up a sun-baked red-earth path, on which were found numbers of a Cicin- 

 delid beetle (almost certainly a form of Cicindela melancholica F.) : I had not previously met 

 witli this insect, which appears to be the only member of the family found in the Seychelles. 

 Having arrived almost at the highest point of the path, beyond which it commences to 

 descend the other side of the hills, we turned to the left along the side of a marshy piece 

 of ground filled with rank vegetation over which were flying several fritillaries (Atetta 

 philiberti Joan.). Then a fairly open piece of ground, in which "coco de mer" palms stand 

 at intervals, was traversed : here also were numerous young palms, and tufts of grass, 

 which swarmed with insects, parasitic Hymenoptera and Coleoptera. Finally, after a slight 

 descent, one enters the " coco de mer " jungle, one of the most beautiful pieces of forest 

 which I ever saw in the Seychelles. Those forms of vegetation which appear strangest to 

 the eyes of a European are here massed together, almost to the exclusion of more ordinary- 

 looking plants : great "cocos de mer" rear their crowns of leaves aloft, sometimes to heights 

 of 80 feet or more ; there are tall slender Deckenia palms, Stevensonia, and big clumps of 

 Pandanus. Among the foliage overhead is heard at intervals the note of a dark brown 

 parrot (Coracopsis barklyi). As might be expected, such a place proved to be a rich 

 collecting-ground ; though it remains to be seen whether the insects as well as the palm 

 Lodoicea are peculiar to this one island. Interesting Coleoptera were found by shaking 

 the dead palm-leaves with which the ground is strewn, and certain beetles and Hemiptera 

 (Aradidse) were obtained in numbers from decaying logs. A moderately tall male " coco 

 de mer" tree was felled and a number of Coleoptera found between the bases of the leaves, 

 including at least one remarkable form (a Scydmaanid) which was quite new to me. 



Some Acridiidse were caught in a dry, sandy, grass-grown place on the low-lying 

 coastal land at Grande Anse : and another member of the family was present in some 

 numbers in a rather similar situation in Felicite Island. These grasshoppers almost 

 certainly belong to species which range over many of the islands in this part of the 

 Indian Ocean, and perhaps even more widely still. They are an example of a certain 

 section of the Seychelles insect-fauna, which is found only near the coasts of the big 

 islands and on small out-lying islets, and never in the endemic mountain-jungles. It is 

 a part of the fauna in no way peculiar to the archipelago, but common to it and to many 

 of the low-lying islands in the same region. 



A short visit was made to each of the small islands of Marie Anne and Felicitd, 

 which lie relatively near to Praslin. In the former, where I enjoyed the hospitality of 



