298 D. Prain — The Vegetation of the Coco Group. [No. 4, 



related to, but probably quite distinguishable from, A. bulbifer and A. 

 ttiherculiger, the two species hitherto known which exhibit this character. 

 The east side of this island has outside the Pandanus fence, which is 

 there about three times as broad and thick as on the west, a belt of 

 Thespesia populnea and Giiettarda speciosa, with patches of PempMs 

 acidula and Clerodendron inerme, and some trees of Oordia suhcordata 

 and Ghampereia Griffithiana as well as a few thickets of Vitex Negundo 

 and Vesmodium umhellatum. 



The sandy isolated spit on the reef between Great Coco and Jerry 

 Island is not covered even by spring-tides — it is about 70 feet long from 

 north to south by some 30 feet across, and at the time of the writer's 

 visit there could be counted on it (mostly near the east side, and towards 

 the south end) about a dozen germinating coco-nuts ; three seedling 

 Hibiscus tiliaceus, a seedling Thespesia, some seedlings of Gyrocarpus, four 

 seedling Mtocima, two seedling Erythrina, six seedling Ga^'apa moluccensis, 

 one seedling Barringtonia speciosa, one seedling JEntada scandens, some 

 young Ipomcea biloba, and one young Gynometra, with two or three other 

 species not recognised. 



In general features Little Coco so greatly resembles the other 

 islands that it is unnecessary to deal with it in detail. The chief 

 feature is perhaps the great abundance of Gorypha elata and Siphonodon 

 celastrineus ; still both species were met with, though sparingly, on the 

 Great Coco. 



Before concluding, however, this general account of the vegetation of 

 the islands the two fresh water accumulations deserve to be more parti- 

 cularly noted. That on the Great Coco consists of a small lake in the 

 narrow neck of land that joins the outlying north-eastern peninsula to 

 the rest of the island. This lakelet is about 300 yards long and hardly 

 100 yards wide, with its longer diameter across the isthmus. Its depth is 

 a little over 3 feet ; it is uniformly deep from side to side and from end 

 to end, with a hard, even bottom. At either end it is only separated from 

 the sea by some 80 to 100 yards of shingle bank, and it seems difficult 

 to understand why the water it contains does not ooze out, and how it 

 is that it is unaffected by the adjacent salt water, since the bottom of 

 the lake is lower than the point reached by the waves that beat up on 

 the single beach, if not actually lower than the level of the highest tides. 

 The bottom seems to be no more than the floor of what has formerly 

 been a shallow bay on the fringing-reef, and the shingle banks which 

 separate it at either end from the sea seem to be nothing more than the 

 ultimate embankments that would result when the causeways connecting 

 outlying islets with the main island are so enlarged by accretion as to 

 cease to be covered by the tides. This postulates that the present out- 



