444 THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 
34 miles long, the latter being, moreover, fully three-fourths 
of a mile broad at its central and widest place. 
The lagoon too is large, and in places, deep, but the sole en- 
trance to it, that we could hear of, was only practicable for our 
steam cutter at or near high water, and as we did not anchor 
till past 10 a.M., and as the tide had been high about 7 a.M., 
we failed during the entire day to get through the reef or land 
any where. We circumnavigated ‘the atoll. but failed to see 
even one single Gull, Tern, or Sea Bird. About 5 Pp. M., we got 
water enough to cross the reef close to the southern extremity 
of the island, and ran a mile or so up the lagoon, and landed 
some of our people. But we saw very little as it was getting 
dusk, and only made out, that the central portion of the island 
alone was planted, and that the rest was thickly covered with 
low scrub jungle. We arranged for some of our men, who 
could shoot, to sleep on the island, so that they might commence 
the search for birds at daylight. 
February 18th.—Landed by 7:30, and worked the whole island 
hard till dusk. Ido not believe that there could have been a 
single bird on the island not seen or shot by somebody. Yetlarge 
as the island is, and extensive as is the scrub jungle, the 
only species at all abundant were the White-eyed Tit and 
the common Koil. There were several pairs of Kestrels, and 
one Elanus melanopterus was seen and shot. No Crows, no 
other land birds, but of shore birdsa very few of each of the 
following were seen, and one or two of each obtained :— 
The Kastern Golden Plover (C. fulvus), the Kentish, Mongol 
and Large Shore Plovers (4. cantianus, mongolicus, and 
Geofroyt), the Turnstone, the Indian Curlew (NV. lineatus), 
the Common Sandpiper, (7. hypoleucos), the Greenshank (7. 
canescens), the Indian Pond Heron (Ardeola Grayit), and the 
Green Bittern (Butorides javanicus). 
Certes, it was worth while coming so far and working so 
hard (and the heat was great, and the glare from the white 
sand, and the glitter from the cn most trying) to get a 
trumpery lot like this ! 
Of course, with so much jungle, we got a good many species 
of plants which we had not previously met "with, but one and 
all common tropical plants, many of them of the widest distribu- 
tion. Screw Pines were more abundant than we had_ hitherto 
seen them, but the people make no use of the fruit. I tried 
to teach and explain to them the Nicobarese method of cooking 
the fruit, whereby excellent bread is obtained. The fruit, split 
up in its natural divisions is boiled for 12 hours, then the doughy 
portions of the interior are scraped out with a shell, and patted 
together into a ball; a fine string is then drawn through and 
