160 D. Prain — Little Andaman and the Nicohars. [Dec. 



to the fact that the island, being so remote and so inaccessible, is largely 

 frequented by fruit-eating pigeons and is one, (it has been even said, is 

 the only), known locality in which the large Nicobars pigeon (Galoenas 

 nicoharica) breeds. Fruit-eating bats too are abundant in the island 

 and are perhaps partly responsible for the introduction of some of these 

 species. Among the more interesting species of this kind is the Datura^ 

 which in most localities is considered, and probably correctly considered, 

 a species introduced by man but which here undoubtedly must be a bird- 

 introduced plant. Not only is it an exceedingly rare thing for the 

 Nicobarese to visit the island. Datura is not a plant with which they 

 are acquainted. The writer, who collected all the possibly introduced 

 species to be found in the neighbourhood of the two villages on Car 

 Nicobar visited by him did not find it present. Moreover it was apparent- 

 ly not found either by Mr. Jelinek during the visit of the frigate " No- 

 vara " or by Mr. Kurz during his visit to the Nicobars, and no Solanacece 

 are enumerated in Mr. Kurz's list of Nicobars plants in the Society's 

 Journal^ vol. xlv, part 2, p. 1 15 et seq. Though uninhabited and apparently 

 very rarely visited there are some Coco-nut trees ; the nuts are, how- 

 ever, small and their flavour is rather poor. The few trees that occur are 

 just within the Pandanus fence, and there is nothing like a Coco-nut zone. 

 There is no water on the island ; still, besides the bats, there occur, of 

 mammalia, both rats and pigs ; the traces of the latter were very com- 

 mon and one pig's skull was found in the jungle. The great feature of 

 the island, however, is the enormous multitude of Nicobar pigeons. These 

 swarm everywhere, in the trees and on the ground, and remind one by 

 their numbers of an English " rookery."* No snakes were seen, but 

 the number and variety of the lizards was very remarkable. 



One of the most striking features of the island was the freshness 

 and greenness of the foliage, even in March ; a circumstance that, consi- 

 dering the nature of the soil, must be altogether explained by the re- 

 markably heavy dews that are deposited in these latitudes. Landing 

 as the writer did, at day-break, he found the leaves quite as heavily 

 laden with water as they could possibly have been after a thunder- 

 shower, and on the side of the island away from the sun the dews had 

 not yet become completely dissipated at 10 A. m. 



After spending eight hours on shore the writer, himself, but not the 

 island, exhausted, had reluctantly to return to the " Nancowry " which 

 at once steamed off to Andamans, reaching Port Blair on Monday at 

 noon. 



* For an interesting account of the appearance of the island see Mr. Hume's 

 paper already referred to ; Stray Feathers^ vol. ii, pp. 94—97. 



