160 PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION. 
quarters to Praslin, an island much less known and less collected than Mahé. Here we 
remained for 17 days, camping on the coast in Cdte d’Or Bay by kind permission of 
M. Bouton, Manager for M. Boullé. 
Céte d’Or gives its name to the chief estate in Praslin, where the far-famed double 
coconut or coco-de-mer (Lodoicea seychellarum) is found growing. It is perhaps the 
noblest known palm, and it occurs in the wild state in Praslin only, being supposed to 
have been transported to the neighbouring islet of Curieuse by human agency. Its 
growth and natural history are too well-known to need any special description. The 
nut takes about 3 years to germinate. The male tree bears its first flowering-spike 
when about 45 years old and the female its first bunch when about 65 years. The nut 
takes 7 to 9 years to ripen, remaining attached to the parent tree. It then falls and its 
husk, which is relatively thin, splits off. Thus a generation takes 75 to 80 years. The 
nuts themselves are of two kinds, the dividing-groove of the one form being straight, 
the other branched in a Y-shaped manner. ‘These nuts are known respectively as the 
male and female, being believed to give male and female trees, though this rests, so far 
as we could ascertain, on no direct evidence. In the storehouse at Céte d’Or, M. Bouton 
showed us 337 nuts, of which he classified 182 as belonging to the first kind and 155 to 
the second, there being no intermediates. Both kinds are said, and indeed appeared 
to us, to grow on the same tree, but it is uncertain whether they hang on the same 
bunches. Nuts which were shown to us as fertile are incapable of floating in sea-water, 
while dead nuts commonly float. This fact prevents the tree from being transported to 
other lands, even the nearest. Supposing the tree to have been originally ocean-borne 
to the Island of Praslin from some other land, it must have had a much lighter nut. 
It would then have acquired on the steep slopes of Praslin its great weight and 
probably size as well, these putting an end to its power of being further dispersed. 
Praslin itself is entirely of granitic formation, as, indeed, are all the other islands on 
the centre of the Seychelles Bank*. This granite, together with that of Mahé, 
Silhouette, and other islands, will form the subject of a separate Report by Dr. Flett. 
The land fauna and flora of the Seychelles and their interrelations will likewise have to 
be considered subsequently in dealing with the question of their original peopling with 
animals and plants. So far as possible we collected the fauna of Praslin and studied it 
in relation to the vegetation of that island, but our results were disappointing, as nearly 
all parts of the island seemed to have been devastated at some time or other by forest- 
fires. Further, we found no area of more than a few acres which had not formerly 
been cleared for economic products. Lastly, the maximum height of Praslin is only 
1261 feet, and it is hence much drier than the more elevated islands of Mahé (2993 feet) 
and Silhouette (2467 feet). Our stay also was at the end of a long drought, which only 
began to break after our return to the more western islands. 
From Praslin we visited the neighbouring islands of La Digue, Round, Felicité, 
Curieuse, N. Cousin, and 8. Cousin (Pl. 14). We also examined a number of the isolated 
* Further information as to the geography, history, forests, and economic conditions of the Seychelles may be 
obtained from “The Indian Ocean,” Geogr. Journ., Nov. 1906, pp. 456 et seg., and ‘ The Seychelles Archipelago,” 
Geogr, Journ., Feb, 1907, pp. 148-174; both articles by the senior of us, 
