BOTANY OF THE LACCADIVES. 
GO 
the higher prices given for their coir render its manufacture more profitable 
to the people. In the Cannanore Islands, where coir is under monopoly and the 
Cannanore Raj gives much poorer prices for that article than the inhabitants of 
the British islands obtain, large quantities of are produced both for 
home consiunption and for export to the people on the British islands, the 
chief islands in which it is manufactured being, according to Robinson, those 
of Anderut and Korati. 
Paj^idane^. 
162. Fandanus odoratissimus Linn, f,, Suppl. 424 ; Roxb., Ilor. 
Ind., iii, 7.S8 ; Balf. f.. Jour. Linn. Soc., xvii, 54. 
Bangaro ; abundant, Hume. Kadamum ; very abundant, Hume. Ameni; 
Hume. Eoltan ; only a few plants, Hume. Ealpeni ; Alcoch. Minikoi; Fle¬ 
ming ! a regular sea-fence of this plant smTounds the island, Hamilton. 
A littoral species extending from the Indian Coasts to Malaya, Australia 
and Polynesia. 
In the Laccadive Islands proper there is not, in densely peopled and carefully 
planted islands like Ealt^n, more than the merest remnant of a Fandanus sea-fence 
left, though in uninhabited islands Kke Bangaro and in partially occupied ones 
like Kadamum, it is well represented. But, curiously enough, it is quite absent 
from the uniuhabited island of Bitra, where also Cocos nucifera does not occur as 
a littoral and sea-introduced species. In Minikoi, however, where the island is 
fully occupied and carefully planted, the Fandanus sea-fence has been allowed to 
remain as a belt all round the island. This belt of jungle harboius an immense 
number of rats {Mus rattus vae. rufescens)*, which here, as in the other islands, 
prove very destructive to the coco-nut crop. Captain Wentworth Hamilton, 
Port Officer of Gopalpiu, who commanded the S. S. ’■^Martha Heathcote^’’ 
clm’ing a recent official visit to Minikoi, informed the writer in 1889 that 
the disturbances which led to the visit arose out of a Government order 
to cut down this jungle and, by removing their shelter, to render possible 
a systematic attempt to exterminate the rats. The populace objected most 
strongly to the order, on the ground that this belt of jungle is the abode of 
evil spirits that would be certain, were their domain invaded, to retaliate by 
bringing misfortune on the island. Minikoi, as has been akeady said, though 
Laccadive as to political connection, and as much Laccadive as Maidive as 
to situation, has a Maidive population ; there is no evidence of superstition 
so gross among the MappHa population of the other -Laccadives ; at all 
events, they do not appear to have any scruples about clearing away the Fan¬ 
danus belt. 
♦ Hume, “ Stray Feathers,” iv, 433. 
1G9 
