1891.] D. Prain — The Vegetation of the Coco Group. 285 



per Island, which at low-tide is not separated from the main island, are 

 cleared on account of some cattle of which the lighthouse-keeper has 

 charge. Throughout the rest of the island, however, except for a few 

 pathways that have been cut on account of the cattle, the jungle is very 

 dense and uniform. Around a bay at the south side of this island as well 

 as on the north coast is a fringe of coco-nut trees. The height of Slipper 

 Island is 110 feet ; the highest point of Table Island proper is 150 feet. 

 On the occasion of the visit referred to, the eastern half of the island, 

 where the jungle is as yet intact, was traversed from south to north ; the 

 northern and western coasts were examined ; the island was traversed from 

 west to east along one of the cattle paths ; the clearing was also examined 

 for introduced weeds and escapes from cultivation. 



On Gi'eat Coco Island there is a small clearing on a peninsula that 

 foi'ms the north-eastern extremity of the island, the site of an abandoned 

 settlement which, some years ago, it was attempted to effect and where 

 the writer was encamped during his first visit. Except at this point and 

 on two or three of the more exposed cliffs and slopes on the western sea- 

 face of the island, which are only grass-clad, there is a uniform jungle 

 from end to end of the island and from base to summit of the numerous 

 more or less parallel steep ridges that compose it. The shore is fringed 

 with coco-nut trees in quite a thin belt where the ridges that compose the 

 island come close to the shore, and this fringe is broken here and there 

 where these ridges end in abrupt headlands ; the belt widens however at 

 the heads of the various bays and in two places in particular,— on the 

 eastern side of the island along the bay that extends southward from the 

 north-eastern peninsula already mentioned, as well as across the isthmus 

 joining this peninsula to the main island and thence along the northern 

 end of the island to the mouth of the principal creek — again, on the 

 western side of the island for half a mile or more northwards from the 

 southern end — this belt of coco- nut trees is 100 yards or moi-e in width. 

 Where the beach meets the coco-nut belt there is an invai'iable sea-fence 

 of Pandanus with other ordinary Indian Ocean littoral plants ; this fence 

 is generally less dense where the beach is composed of sand than when it 

 consists of coral shingle. Except on the very crests of the ridges, and 

 sometimes even there, and on the more exposed western headlands, the 

 forest is composed of very tall trees with below these a dense imder- 

 growth ; this undergrowth is particularly dense, owing to the number 

 of creepei's, on the crest o£ ridges destitute of tall trees, and on the 

 slopes of the western sea-face that are not grassy. It is also very dense 

 immediately behind the coco-nut belt especially if, as frequently hap- 

 pens, this belt passes insensibly into the mudflats that characterise the 

 outskirts of a mangrove swamp. On the sides of ridges however, as 



