AN EXPEDIKION TO CHRISTMAS ISLANDS. 141 



Looking down on the two great terraces lying below and 

 running parallel with the coast line it was difficult to believe 

 that we were looking down on the tops of trees over 100 feet 

 tall. So dense and equal were they, that one seemed to be look- 

 ing on grass and bushes. The cliff is about 600 feet above sea 

 level, and nearly vertical, but it might be possible to descend 

 it. The three terraces are distinct to the North but one runs 

 out a little beyond the point where we were to the South 

 where apparently at some time a good deal of stream denuda- 

 tion has taken place. This track was said to have been first 

 made by Mr. Andrews so that we named its terminus Andrew's 

 Lookout. Here grow several plants of interest. Just above 

 the Lookout, were a number of gigantic smooth barked trees 

 bare at the time of my first visit but at the end of our stay re- 

 visiting the spot they bore pinnate leaves, red when young, and 

 panicles of small white flowers, with blackish drupes 1-J inch long 

 with acid yellow flesh. They were a species of Hog plum 

 Spondias. The trees were too big to climb but we managed 

 to get fallen flowers and fruit and a bough of leaves. This was 

 an interesting discovery as the Hog plums are rather character- 

 istic of Polynesian Islands. None were seen on any other part 

 of the Island, nor on the lower cliffs of the North East Point. 

 The ground was strewn with fallen fruit which was apparently 

 not touched by any birds, or the fruit bats. They were much 

 too far from the sea for the seed to have been washed up into 

 that position, in the present condition of the Island, and the 

 circumscribed area which they occupied, and the piles of un- 

 touched fruit beneath the trees seemed to suggest that no bird 

 at present on the Island could act as seed-disperser. On the 

 rocks of the cliff edge, were Colubrina pedunculated Baker, a 

 large straggling shrub, just coming into leaf and bearing only 

 the dry capsules of last season, and Premna luciduld Miq., a 

 shrub of which we got fruit and flowers later. The common 

 Croton caudatus formed troublesome thickets along the edge. 

 It apparently flowers but seldom here, but its brilliant red 

 withering leaves brighten up the woods and make it very con- 

 spicuous. Ficus scbxophifa a truly rock or rather precipice 

 loving tree about twenty feet tall, had bright yellow figs on it, 



B, A. Soc, No. 45, 1905, 



