brahma coloured cocos;- the brahma colour
being the colour of the complexions of the
Hindoo caste of Brahma.

Many new observations are needed to
explain the circumstances of soil and climate
which produce the varieties of the coco-
palms. The tendency which there is in all
the forms of life to transmit and perpetuate
peculiarities once acquired, is one of the great
laws of physiology. The application of the
great principles of physiology, however, to
unveil the secrets of Ihe lives of the coco-
palms, their circulation, respiration,
secretions, and races, remains to be made.
Unluckily we are likely to have to wait some
time for this application, as there is a decided
difference of taste at present between the
sciences and the palms respecting climate.
The sciences prefer the temperate, and the
palms the hot latitudes.

The abortions of the coco-palms, according
to the observations of Dr. Charles Reynaud,
occur almost always upon marshy soils. Two
nuts sometimes grow under one envelope of
fibres. When the nut withers, the husks
generally grow largely. Nuts are found which
are not longer than a finger length, nor more
than an inch thick, and which are of a
triangular form. Curiosities are frequently
manufactured out of nuts, one side of which
has stopped growing, while the other half
has grown enough for both. The trunks are,
of course, not to be outdone by the nuts in
drollery. The trunks sometimes split into
two, three, four, and, once upon a time, into
thirty trunks. Rumphius saw near
Bombarde, a coco-palm which, when it reached
the height of about thirty feet, divided into
thirty trunks, like the branches of a candelabra.
A three-trunked coco-palm was deemed
the fatal tree of the Indians inhabiting the
mountain called Oud-Keytello, and when it
fell suddenly, they ceased fighting the Dutch,
saying:
" Our power has fallen with that tree."

The roots, as usual, however, surpass all
these eccentricities. The islanders of the
Mauritius, says Dr. Charles Reynaud,
frequently throw the refuse of their fruit in
manure-heaps over the roots of the coco-
palms. A slimy mass is formed, which
prevents the rain-water from reaching and
nourishing the roots. A green moss then
covers the trunk, and by-and-by the bark
peels off from below upwards, and all the
central part of the trunk is transformed into
a prodigious quantity of new roots, which
cover over the old ones. It is said commonly
in these islands that the coco-palm has re-
mounted upon the top of the rubbish-heap.
The coco-palm has escaped the sullying mass,
but it is at the risk of its life. The extraordinary
absorption of sap enfeebles the tree
for a long time, during which the leaves grow
thin, the flowers are sterile, and the fruits
are abortive. However, after a time the
coco-palm regains something of its pristine
vigour, although never recovering all its
former solidity, probably because it is hoisted
up too high upon an unstable and sandy
foundation.

The interest of these displays of vegetal
life must not prevent me, however, from
pursuing the products of the coco-palms.
Coco bonnets are made out of the insides,
of the stalks of the leaflets of the leaves,
which are stripped off and plaited. The
natives of the Sechell Islands used to plait
excellent garden hats, which were light, cheap,
and pretty. Lacking the impress of European
superiority, the prestige of the London and
Paris fashions, they were disdained, of course,
by the ladies of European origin in the
tropics. Coco fans are very curious toys.
Although rare in Europe, it costs only about
a shilling where it is made. When folded up
it is far from having the portability and
elegance of the most common European fans;
yet it can be carried in the hand, or put in
the pocket without inconvenience. The fan is
round, and is made of a thin, white, light,
and elastic material.

Human industry and ingenuity, which
makes fans and bonnets of the folioles and
stalks, produces a vast variety of useful
things from the trunks, leaves, leaflets, fibres,
flowers, and fruits. Coco-wood is used to
make laths, and roofs for cabins, waterpipes,
bridges, scaffoldings, javelins,
marqueterie, boats and ships. The boats of the
Maldive and Laquedive islands are built by
hollowing middle-aged coco-palms, and
making flexible planks of them, which are fastened
together by coco-ropes, caulked with tow of
coco-fibre, and pitched with a preparation
of coco-oil. The Malays weave the leaflets
into sails for their prahus. The sheaths
of the leaves of the coco-palms are made
into sieves and sacks. The green cocos
are placed in these sacks to preserve them
from bats. The labourers of Tahiti make
coarse clothes out of these sheaths,
which they wear when doing rough work.
The leaves of the coco-palms are used to
thatch cabins. Of the thick stem of the leaf,
the Cingalese make oars for their boats,
palisades for their little gardens, and the
floors, ceilings, and window-sashes of their
cabins. When split into little, thin, and
spread-out canes, and bound together with
thread, they are transformed into mats and
curtains. The leaves are the food of the
domestic elephants. But this is not all.
The Cingalese form beautiful floral arches
with the coco-leaves, on the fête-days of
their idols. Nor is this all. When burnt,
the leaves yield the soda which is used in
washing linen in Ceylon. The leaflets rival
the leaves in usefulness. The women of Tongu
Tabou make combs of the nerves of the
leaflets, which they sell to voyagers. They are
manufactured into visors, capes, kilts, and
paper. The capes consist of a couple of