PREFACE ix 



use, and are those that every man, woman, and child about the 

 atoll constantly employs. 



Again, with the animals and plants, a native name is 

 altogether useless unless it is the local word employed to 

 designate the species. It is vain to urge that a particular 

 word is not the one employed by Malays in the Straits to 

 distinguish a certain fish, and therefore is not good Malay ; 

 for the stranger who is unacquainted with the word chucMtt 

 will glean no information about sharks in the atoll, though 

 in Singapore he used an altogether different word. I have 

 given native names for the Flora and Fauna of the group 

 solely as a guide for any subsequent collector, and to him no 

 names are helpful save those in actual local use. This I 

 have done because in my own case I derived considerable 

 help in the naming of species from the lists collected by 

 Dr. C. W. Andrews in Christmas Island. 



Some details of the zoology of the islands I have already 

 published, for the most part in the Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society of London, and to this society I am indebted for permis- 

 sion to republish much of the contents of chapters viil., ix., 

 and X. and of Appendix I. For the re-use of some figures I 

 am also obliged to the Zoological Society, and for others to the 

 editor of the Badminton Magazine. 



Notes on the Fauna of the islands were published in the 

 pages of the London Hospital Gazette, and with the kind 

 permission of the editor of that journal some of these notes 

 are incorporated here. 



I owe a debt also to Mr, F. Hesse — general manager of the 

 Eastern Extension Telegraph Company — to the officers of the 

 company's ships, and to the shore staff of the cable station, for 

 the use of material, and in many cases for the kindest personal 

 help. 



