CHAP. XXIV.] FOREST TREES. 61 



ground at the foot of the trees. The most extraordinary 

 trees of the forest are, however, a kind of fig, the aerial 

 roots of which form a pyramid near a hundred feet high, 

 terminating just where the tree branches out above, so that 

 there is no real trunk. This pyramid or cone is formed of 

 roots of every size, mostly descending in straight lines, but 

 more or less obliquely — and so crossing each other, and 

 connected by cross branches, which grow from one to 

 another ; as to form a dense and complicated network, to 

 which nothing but a photograph could do justice (see illus- 

 tration at Vol. I. page 130). The Kanary is also abun- 

 dant in this forest, the nut of which has a very agreeable 

 flavour, and produces an excellent oil. The fleshy outer 

 covering of the nut is the favourite food of the great green 

 pigeons of these islands (Carpophaga perspicillata), and 

 their hoarse cooings and heavy flutterings among the 

 branches can be almost continually heard. 



After ten days at Langundi, finding it impossible to get 

 the bird I was particularly in search of (the Nicobar 

 pigeon, or a new species allied to it), and finding no new 

 birds, and very few insects, I left early on the morning of 

 April 1st, and in the evening entered a river on the main 

 island of Batchian (Langundi, like Kasserota, being on a 

 distinct island), where some Malays and Galela men have a 

 small village, and have made extensive rice-fields and plan- 

 tain grounds. Here we found a good house near the river 



