Pandanus (Pandanus utilis).—Throughout the islands eastward of New Guinea this species, both cultivated and wild, was the most widely-disseminated plant made use of by man. In New Zealand the flowers and fruit of the kiekie (Freycinetia bankseyi), belonging to the same natural order, were also largely consumed by the natives, but I am not aware that the plant was ever multiplied by cultivation. The Rev. Dr. Gill, in his work “Life in the Southern Isles,” thus describes one of the uninhabited islands visited by him: “Spending a pleasant day once on an uninhabited island—Nassau Island—I was surprised to see hundreds of robber-crabs asleep on the branches of lofty trees. In perfect safety they hung in rows, holding by their sharp-pointed toes in the shade of a primeval forest. These robber-crabs could not have existed on cocoanuts, as there was at that time but a single tree growing on the island. In all probability they had fed on the oily nut of the pandanus, which grows in great abundance near the sea. For the benefit of distressed voyagers, we planted upwards of thirty young cocoanut-trees, not without a misgiving that these fierce crabs might destroy them. Such however, was not the case, for they are now—1876—laden with fruit.” Before reading this I was inclined to regard the robber-crab as a proof of the Polynesian origin of the cocoanut-palm, the ease with which it tore open the monster fruit being, seemingly, an adaptation; but the presence of the animal where the cocoanut is not found does not favour this view. The thick fibrous covering and the strong shell of the cocoanut are clearly an adaptation to the rough waves by which the nut must be so largely disseminated, the tree being littoral, and frequently growing out over the water. Note.—The adaptation of the cocoanut to the sea may appear out of keeping with what has been said regarding its distribution among the Pacific islands; but I do not consider the structure of the fruit has anything to do with long sea-voyages: its adaptation is to the rough waves of the shore, along which the fruit must be so frequently carried and thrown up. Woodford states, in his work on the Solomon Islands, that the young cocoanut-palm will not grow beneath the shade of other trees. As we know that it thrives and bears fruit in situations where its roots are frequently damped by salt-water, we can see that the seed thrown ashore by the waves would be placed in the most favourable situation for growth. IV.—Polynesian Agriculture. In the foregoing chapters we have seen that nine species of plants foreign to the region were found in cultivation amongst the Maoris of eastern Polynesia and New Zealand by early European voyagers—besides the cocoanut, the true habitat of