142 ANOTHER VISIT TO THE ANDAMANS 



On the beach there were numerous tracks of turtles, 

 whose caches of eggs we several times found violated 

 by the great water-lizard [Varanus salvator). From 

 the stomach of one of these voracious lizards shot by 

 Lieut. Kendall, we turned out two large reef-eels, a 

 full-grown land-crab of the largest kind, and a mass 

 of roots. 



At the southern end of the island is a lakelet, 

 several acres in extent, and from 6 inches to 2 feet 

 deep, of water which, if not perfectly fresh, is at any 

 rate so very slightly brackish as to be quite fit to 

 drink. Though surrounded by healthy mangroves, its 

 own flora consists of such characteristic freshwater 

 plants as rushes, lotus, and the cosmopolitan pond- 

 weed Chara. What its fauna may be I much regret 

 to be unable to say, for though we shot some of the 

 Andaman teal that had made it their home, we failed 

 to catch any of the fish that we saw rising in abundance. 

 This sheet of practically fresh water is undoubtedly one 

 of those mangrove creeks, already alluded to, which 

 has become cut off from the sea, and then converted 

 into a lake by the accumulated surface drainage of 

 this rainy island. The waveworn sandstone rocks 

 that stud its surface, and the blocks of unaltered coral 

 and the marine shells scattered along its shore, show how 

 recently it must have been an arm of the sea, though 

 it is now separated from the beach by a thicket about 

 twenty paces in width. 



