THE PALMS OF ASIA. 91 



sweetest and softest part of the tree, nenr the 

 crown ; and in young plants they prove seriously 

 hurtful, checking the growth, and impairing 

 the health of the future tree. In a morning's 

 walk, an active lad will frequently secure as 

 many as a score of these cooroorainyas, which, 

 after being killed, are strung up on Lilliputian 

 gibbets about the estate, as a warning to their 

 live friends. 



*' Further on, I perceived, gathered in anxious 

 consultation, three of the lads around a tree 

 that was loaded with fi'uit ; they looked up at 

 the leaves, then at the root, then at the trunk. 

 At last, one little fellow started off, swift-footed 

 as a hare, and was soon out of sight. The 

 others began scraping the earth from the root 

 as fast as possible ; and all the information they 

 would impart was ' Icydie gaha^ or sick tree, 

 so that there was nothing for it but to imagine 

 that the little messenger had been despatched 

 for the doctor. He soon came back, not with 

 the medicine man, but a 7namootie, or Dutch hoe, 

 and a cattie, or sharp bill-hook, and then the 

 busy work went on again. In little more time 

 than I take to tell the story, the soil Avas re- 

 moved from about the root, a hole was disco- 

 vered in the trunk, and its course upwards 

 ascertained by means of a cane probe. With 



