34* CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ORNITHOLOGY OF INDIA. 



tic Sunderbuns answers very well for any Malayan shore and 

 also for the Andamans. The only coast plants in these islands 

 which are not Indian are Malayan in character, such as Carapa 

 moluccensis, Licuala paludosa, and Hydriophytum formicarum. 

 The little palm Phoenix paludosa, which is common to Burmah 

 and Bengal, occurs also in the Andamans. 



"Nicobars. — The flora of these islands is very imperfectly 

 known, and only fragmentary notices of it exist. Chief among 

 these are some remarks by Diedrichsen in the Journal of 

 Botany, Vol. II, p. 1, et seg., and stray notes by members of the 

 Austrian Novara Expedition in certain German periodicals. 

 These, however, are superficial in character. The plants brought 

 by our own garden collectors, whom you took with you from 

 these islands, are scanty, and consist chiefly of coast species 

 most of which are found also in the Andamans. They afford quite 

 insufficient data for forming any idea of the flora. It is highly 

 probable that it will be found to resemble that of Sumatra." 



From Mr. Kurz also I quote the following interesting sketch 

 of the geology of South Andaman and Rutland Island. 

 Mr. Kurz is, I believe, almost the only European who has had 

 an opportunity of exploring the interior of these islands ; and 

 what renders these remarks of his still more valuable is, that, 

 so far as may be judged at present, most of his remarks, in re- 

 gard to the physical geography and geology of the Southern 

 Andaman, are equally applicable to the middle and north- 

 ern one : — 



" The whole of South Andaman and Eutland is a hilly country 

 traversed by narrow and steep ridges of no great height, and 

 encircled by a complete barrier-reef, on which a line of breakers 

 is foaming durirg the rise of the tide. 



" These dangerous reefs are formed chiefly of Caryophyllia, Mad- 

 repora, Forties, Meandria, and other reef-forming corals. Between, 

 high and low water-mark there exists in some places a swampy 

 mass formed by a large number of yellow and flesh-colored carnous 

 sponges, covering the coral reefs, and exhaling a disagreeable 

 smell in the neighbourhood. 



" The principal ranges all run from south by west to north by 

 east, thus somewhat in the direction of the lines of out-crop of 

 the different strata. They are most devoloped along the eastern, 

 coasts, where, they attain sometimes a height of 1,200 to 1,300 feet, 

 sending out numerous spurs towards the sea. Ford Peak on 

 Eutland Island may perhaps exceed 2,000 feet in elevation, and 

 the Saddle Mountain in North Andaman is rather more than 3,000 

 feet high. Towards the western coasts they gradually become 

 lower ; and nowhere on that coast are higher ridges observed than 



