84 - 
SURVIVAL ON LAND AND SEA 
they are not a safe guide as they will occasionally feed on things 
harmful to man. 
Food plants are more abundant in some localities than others 
and your chances of finding them vary according to the nature 
of the place where you are forced to look for them. Seashores, 
abandoned clearings, margins of streams, and swamps are more 
likely places than deep tropical jungles or mountain tops. The 
best places to find food plants, of course, are those where men 
are or have been growing them. In cultivated regions you can 
depend upon the natives for food, if you have made the proper 
contacts in the manner already described in the discussion of 
natives (chapter IV, p. 53). Where there are no natives you 
will have to fall back on your own resourcefulness. 
Plants Along Seashores 
In many cases the need for emergency food plants may arise 
along a seashore. As a general rule such places are better 
supplied in that respect than other locations. This is in part 
because of the fact that in less civilized regions the people tend 
to live near the sea and as a consequence there are numerous 
cultivated plants, although they actually may not longer be 
cared for, as well as various wild forms. Many of the sandy, 
tropical shores have plants which are found all over the world. 
Coconuts and other palms (Fig. 16) characteristically line many 
tropical coasts. The many uses of the coconut have already been 
described in the section on Island Survival (p. 31), and need 
not be repeated. Other kinds of palms are also a valuable source 
of food. The tender growing tips, usually found at the tops of 
the stems in the bases of the leaves, may be cut out and eaten 
