452 THE LACCADIVES AND THE WEST COAST. 
We caught a lot of crabs here and got numbers of shells, but 
saw no birds, and ran on to Bingaroo, a mass of vegetation 
down to the waters’ edge, dense with cocoanuts above and 
screw pines below. The undergrowth was also very dense. 
Enormous patches of a great sedge (C. pallidus, Heyne,) com- 
mon in Burmah, the Malay Peninsular and Borneo, and now in 
full flower, were very conspicuous. We observed most of the 
plants already recorded, but they grow here with a luxuriance 
which contrasted strongly with the ‘generally -stunted growth of 
the same species on Betra Par. The rosemary-like shore quas- 
sia (Suriana maritima, L.) was here in great densely-packed 
bushes, dotted with small orange yellow daw ers. Interiorly the 
place was an almost impenetrable thicket, full of grass of many* 
species not obtained elsewhere ( Panicum ver ticillatum, L.— Cyno- 
don dactylon?—a species of Hemarthria, and others not in flower 
and not identifiable.) 
Masses of Cesalpinia bonducella, Flem, with its all pervad- 
ing, sharp double recurved thorns, recalling the ‘ Bide=a-wee”’ 
thickets of the Cape, in many places barred all progress. 
Hard work as this was, I worked backwards and forwards for 
more than two hours, and was rewarded by seeing and shooting 
a couple of Koils! There were absolutely no other birds, not 
even White-eyed Tits, on the island. 
Tingaroo was less wooded, but here also there were no land 
birds, but on the shore and on a long sandy reef that runs out 
from Tingaroo, we shot Turnstones, a Kentish Plover, and a 
Curlew, and saw for the first time several common Herons 
(Ardea cinerea). 
Lastly, on the reef a splended female Peregrine kept for some 
time unsuccessfully striking at the Turnstones, and at last came 
right over us. 
The whole north-east portion of the lagoon in which these 
islands and banks are situated is excessively shallow. Paved 
throughout with snow-white sand the water assumed the love- 
liest pale chrysophrase tint imaginable, but this failed to 
console us for the fact that we were perpetually getting 
aground, sticking first here, then there, having all to evacuate 
the cutter, and even lift out the coal bags, &e., and so on. It de- 
layed us terribly as did likewise an unsuccessful attempt to 
capture turtle, of which there were numbers about. It was very 
simple when the Amini people did it; but none of us, natives 
or Europeans, could touch a flapper. 
It was past 2 before we started southwards along the edge 
of the reef for Aucuttee—a long run—but not a single bird was 
* I also noticed here, for the first time, Morinda bracteata, Roxb. 
