PROBLEMS FOR THE FUTURE 143 



Comparing Little Coco with Great Coco, what 

 strikes one most on the former island are the fringing, 

 cliff-like coral-reefs which so often rise sheer out of 

 water lo fathoms deep, and the presence of numerous 

 pigs and large water-lizards. These two animals I 

 never saw on Great Coco, and I am inclined to think 

 that they have been exterminated there by the de- 

 scendants of the pariah dogs which were left behind 

 by the people who once attempted to colonise the 

 island. In a former chapter I mentioned how, in 

 our camp at the northern end of the island, we made 

 the acquaintance of an ancient specimen, whose 

 demeanour showed that she was familiar with man. 

 This year, at the southern end of the island, we 

 encountered what we took to be her descendants, who 

 slunk away silently like jackals, and had lost all right 

 to the specific epithet familiaris. 



When November was past. Captain Hoskyn 

 thought that the weather on the Coromandel coast 

 would be settled enough for survey work, so on the 

 9th of December we left Port Blair, and I took my 

 final farewell of the enchanting islands of Andaman. 



Should the Cocos remained unreclaimed, and 

 should they at some distant time be visited by a 

 naturalist, there are three interesting biological 

 inquiries to which that naturalist of the future might 

 direct his attention. The first is, as to the modifica- 

 tions undergone by the Indian cattle, which have 



