42 



,, capable of establishing itself on oceanic islands, or other shores for 



,,the matter of that, from seeds cast ashore, was long doubted 



,,There is now absolutely incontroversib/e ') evidence, that it is 

 ,,capable of doing so even under apparently very unfavourable cir- 



,,cumstances In the last part of the Proceedings of the Royal 



,,Geographical Society" (March 1890, p. 159) ,,Mr. ). J. Links gives 

 ,,an account of the natural history of the (newly raised) Falcon 

 ,,lsland. From this interesting contribution to the source of insular 

 ,,floras we learn that he found two young coco-nut palms, not in a 

 ,,very flourishing condition, it is true, but they were there and had 

 ,,evident/y obtained d footing unaided by man ')" 



Alas. A fortnight afterwards in the same periodical a note, 

 inserted by \V. J. L. W h a r t o n, appeared saying: ,,\Vith reference to 

 ,,Mr. Hemsley's note .... I regret to inform him that the two young 

 ,,palms found on Falcon Island were placed there by a Tonga chief 

 ,,of Namuka who in 1887 had the curiosity to visit the new-born 

 ,,island and took some coco-nuts with him. This information I received 

 ,,from Commander O I d h a m, who had been much interested at finding 

 ,,these sprouting nuts at some 12 feet above sea-level and well in 

 ,,from the shore of the island, but who found out the unexpected 

 ,,facts in time to save me of making a speculation somewhat similar 

 ,,to Mr. Hemsley's. 



P r a i n -) also, when describing the vegetation of the islands of 

 the coco-group (north of the Andamans) does not suppose that the 

 coco-palm, which is frequent there, has established itself without the 

 intervention of man. He says (I.e. p. 332) ,,Cocos nucifera is extremely 

 ,,abundant in all the islands. Probably it is not truly indigenous 

 ,,though perhaps not intentionally introduced. Once established the 

 ,,species spreads with great rapidity. It should not be forgotten that 

 ,,at some remote period a colony may have been started in the 

 ,,Coco-group and then abandoned. It is known that in recent times 

 ,,two such attempts have been made". And further (I.e. p. 375): ,,lt 

 ,,seems that for this particular group of islands, although the spread 

 ,,of coco-nuts within the group is undoubtedly due to the agency 

 ,,of the sea, the ocean current theory does not explain the presence 

 ,,of the species and that the original introduction has more probably 

 ,,been due to human inference". 



') Italics by me. I he two communications cited here were already referred to by 

 Treub in Teysmannia I (1890), p. 239. 



-) Vegetation of the Coco-group in lournal As. Society Bengal, LX, part 2, 

 pp. 283 seq. 



