108 
THE COCOA-NUT PALM. 
[Nature and Art, April 1, 180 7. 
Lancastrian side.* The silver Lion of Suffolk, 
borne by the Howards, of which Scott speaks, — 
“ Who in field or foray slack 
Saw the blanch Lion e’er fall back ” — 
was, in like manner, a favourite device of Edward 
III., and descended to the Howards through the 
Mowbrays. Neither was this symbolical use of the 
Lion confined to the AY estern nations. W e have an 
example of the contrary in the modern inhabitants 
of the Punjab. The Sikhs were so named from the 
Hindostanee verb sihia, to teach, and they claimed 
to be men of peace, from being taught ; but the 
* This badge (a Lion rampant, gules) was adopted by the 
Duke of Lancaster in token of his supposed claim to the 
crown of Leon. A glance at Sir Bernard Burke’s “Ency- 
clopedia of Heraldry ” will show how frequently the charge 
occurs in English armoury. 
cruelties of the Mahomedans in the North of India 
caused them to become men of war, and they called 
themselves Lions, which in them language is Singh. 
Every Sikh now calls himself by this name. 
Dhuleep Singh is the Lion Dhuleep, and his father, 
Runjeet Singh, was, in like manner, the Lion 
Punjeet. 
No more appropriate pictorial illustration of this 
paper could have suggested itself than a chromo- 
type after one of Mr. Vernon Heath’s now famous 
photographs. Our artist has very happily availed 
himself of the facilities kindly placed at our dis- 
posal, and done injustice neither to the subject nor 
the eminent modeller. With this brief allusion to 
the speciality of our magazine, we must now bring 
our notes on these, “ the chiefest of all terrestrial 
animals ” (as the old Herald Gwillim terms them), 
to a close. 
THE COCO A-A U T PALM. 
( Cocos nucifera.) 
By W. B. Lord, Royal Artillery. 
A MONGST the pleasant memories and “green 
spots ” scattered here and there along the 
path of the traveller to distant lands, few will 
perhaps have made a more lasting and pleasing- 
impression than his first visit to a grove of cocoa- 
nut trees; and the cool refreshing rustle of the 
long graceful fronds as they ripple and wave feather- 
like before the fresh trade wind, is a sound so 
unlike most others, that, once heard, it is rarely 
forgotten, but comes back in far-off scenes like some 
old familiar tune or the voice of a dear friend. 
The coral reef, reared from the ocean’s depths 
by the labours of myriads of tiny coral insects, 
year by year and age by age, growing ever upwards, 
at last reaches the surface, and the crisp-green 
waves break in snow-white foam on the mighty 
barrier which the legion of pigmies have built up to 
dispute their dominion. Sea- weed, drift-wood, the 
dead echini, the broken empty shell, the stranded 
fish, and the thousand and one waifs and strays ever 
drifting with the tidal currents, accumulate on the 
new-formed rock : all these in time decay or break 
up, but are ever added to, until at last, wave- 
borne in its tough and buoyant husk, a cocoa-nut 
arrives, germinates, and sends its roots far out 
amongst the congenial elements with which it is 
surrounded, and, watered by the tropic shower and 
the surf-spray, shoots boldly up, towers aloft, 
becomes a tree, and in due time bears fruit, which, 
when matured, falls, and again germinates like tire 
parent. The passing sea-fowl and migratory birds, 
tempted by the havens of rest thus afforded, 
alight to recruit their weary pinions, bring seeds 
of trees and plants from far-off islands and 
continents, undigested in their crops ; these, too, 
spring into life, bear seed, flourish in their new 
home for the brief period of their existence, and by 
death and decay help to furnish the materials for 
the sustenance of succeeding generations of plants. 
At length man appears on the scene and claims 
the little kingdom Nature has prepared and made 
ready to his hand. Thus it is that the innumerable 
coral islands dotting the tropic seas are formed, and 
these are the favourite homes of the cocoa-nut tree. 
There are other situations in which it grows and 
where its cultivation is carefully attended to ; but 
the cocoa-palm loves the sea breeze as heartily as 
an ancient mariner, and thrives best within its 
influence, rarely arriving at perfection at a greater 
height than six hundred feet above the sea level. 
Numbers of coral isles, formed as we have described, 
are perfectly destitute of water, and contain neither 
wells nor springs. These islands, beautiful as they 
are, would be perfectly uninhabitable had not a 
bountiful Providence provided a substitute in the 
deliciously cool fluid yielded by the young cocoa- 
nuts, of which any quantity can be obtained by 
climbing. Each nut, when of the proper stage of 
growth, contains about a pint of liquid, cool as 
water from the depths of a cavern, and possessing a 
combination of acidity and sweetness most piquant 
and highly refreshing. Sheltered from the noon- 
tide sun by the fern-like canopy overhead, and 
with a cluster of freshly-gathered nuts before him, 
the traveller will scarcely fail to remember 
Thomson’s lines : — 
“ Shelter’d amid the orchards of the sun, 
Where high palmetos lift their graceful shade ; 
Give me to drain the cocoa’s milky bowl, 
And from the palm to drain its fresh’ning wine : 
More bounteous far than all the frantic juice, 
Which Bacchus pours .” 
