14 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 1892. 
islands, but the coco-nut cultivation is limited to a strip across 
the middle, leaving more than three-fourths of the island, divided 
into two nearly equal parts on either side'of this strip, covered with 
natural jungle, the southern portion of the island being occupied 
by a thick low scrubby undergrowth in which the Screw-pine is 
conspicuous, the western part being an open plain covered with 
grassy weeds and low bushes. The island, “ especially in its 
“ northern half, has a deserted and neglected air, and the coco-nuts, 
“ instead of dominating the scene and monopolising attention, are 
“ almost lost sight of in the surrounding jungle^’.*/ There is no area 
specially prepared for grain-tillage, but the natural soil being better 
adapted for the purpose than in the other islands, a considerable 
portion of the dry-grain raised in the group is produced in this island. 
The people of Ameni go there and cultivate during the mon¬ 
soon, ragi {Eleusine. Coracana), jowari [Soi’gJiu m vulg are), and 
loha {Vigna Catjang),fJ Mr. Hume mentions two species of the 
cultivated class, viz.; Indig of era tinctoria, which he speaks of as 
‘wild’ ; Dr. Alcock also sends specimens of this without any 
remark, as if he too had found it in a ‘wild’ state: also Ixora 
Bandhuca, which was common at the time of Mr. Hume’s visit, but 
which Dr. Alcock does not appear to have met with. Mr. Fleming’s 
list of cultivated plants includes Sesbania grandiflora, with the 
Pepper-vine it is grown to support; the Papaya; the Cape Goose¬ 
berry {Physalis peruviana^ also reported by Mr. Hume from the 
adjacent island of Ameni); the Castor-oil plant; the Banyan (of 
which four examples occur, planted near some deserted huts) ; the 
Plantain (of which four were seen in the neighbourhood of the Ban¬ 
yans). Mr. Fle'ming does not report lacca pinnatifida, though pro¬ 
bably this, as in the other islands, is the Taro that is cultivated — 
the other Taro {Colocasia antiguorurn) he reports as present here^ 
as it is in all the other islands, but, as in these, only in a ‘ wild ’ 
condition. 
The littoral species reported from Kadamum are 19 in number. 
These include Tliespesia populnea, which, planted in some of the 
Alcock, “ Administration Report of Marine Survey of India,” year 1891-2, p. 9. 
t Robinson, “Madr. Journ.,” vol. xiv., p. 22. 
314 
