1891.] D. Prain — Little Andaman and the Nicohars. 157 



rarely visited and not previously botanically explored. Having obtained 

 the permission of Dr. G, King, f. r. s., the writer was enabled to make 

 this visit in the " Nancoivry " during March and April 1891. After visit- 

 ing Narcondam the steamer was required at Port Blair in order to proceed 

 to Little Andaman and Car Nicobar, and Col. Cadell not only permitted 

 the writer to accompany the vessel there, but also, at the suggestion of 

 Mr E. H. Man, kindly directed her to proceed to Batti Malv, a small 

 island without inhabitants and very difficult of access, lying 18 miles 

 south of Car Nicobar. After returning from Batti Malv the steamer 

 took the writer to Barren Island. 



The botanical results of the visits to Narcondam and Barren Island, 

 which together formed the central feature of the tour, and the botanical 

 exploration of which was the writer's main purpose, will, it is hoped, 

 soon be made public. The results of the visits to the islands of Little Anda- 

 man, Car Nicobar and Batti Malv have been dealt with separately and are 

 now laid before the Society. They have been treated in this fashion, 

 partly because these visits formed an episode in the tour apart from its 

 main object, but chiefly because the lists are less exhaustive, owing to 

 the short time available for collection in each place, than the correspond- 

 ing lists for Barren Island and Narcondam will be. 



The details of the visits are as follows: — the ^^ Nancoivry '^ left 

 Port Blair on the morning of Good-Friday, reaching Bomliya Creek, 

 where two natives of Little Andaman, who had been visiting Port Blair, 

 were to be landed, about 2 p. m. As the state of the tidal currents made 

 it inadmissable to leave again till 5-30, the writer had an opportunity of 

 spending three hours in collecting at the mouth of the creek and for a 

 mile or two along the north coast of the island to the east of this. 

 The jungle behind the beach forest was too dense and the time avail- 

 able too short to admit of his penetrating any distance into the interior. 



The island of Little Andaman, as seen from the sea, presents a 

 somewhat different appearance from Great Andaman. Instead of being 

 diversified by ridges and valleys and isolated hills, it has a long, low 

 uniform rounded outline similar to that of Sentinel Island as seen from 

 the top of Mount Harriet near Port Blair, and to that of Car Nicobar. 

 It appears, however, to be uniformly covered with forest and to have 

 none of the bare grass-heaths that characterise Car Nicobar. The 

 creek at which the writer landed is the principal one on the north coast 

 of the island. It derives its name from an Andamanese word meaning 

 " flies," and certainly these insects abound there in great numbers and 

 are very troublesome. There is nothing in the mangrove- swamp vege- 

 tation to distinguish this from similar places in the Andamans and very 

 little in the beach-forest to characterise the island except that Casii- 



