The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes
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Part II. of Volume I. will be published on April 75, igo2. The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes Being the Account of the Work carried on and of the Collections made by an Expedition during the years 1899 and 1900 Edited by J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A. Fellow of Gonville and Cains College and Balfour Student of the University of Cambridge. VOLUME I. PART I. With Plates I —V and Text-Illustrations i —23 Cambridge : at the University Press. London:' C. J. Clay and Sons, Cambridge University Press Warehouse, Q ' Ave Maria Lane. 115 u • F 3 Price Fifteen Shillings net. V . 1 pt. 1 ^^"^"^ The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes VOLUME I. PART I. •^ ^ = a ILoniion: C. J. CLAY and SONS, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, AVE MABIA LANE, AND H. K. LEWIS, 13G, GOWER STREET, W.C. (Slasgoto : 50, WELLINGTON STREET. Itnvm- F- A. BROCKHAUS. i^tto gork: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. eombap: E. SEYMOUR HALE. \All Rifihts re>:erved.\ 1 The Fauna and Geography ^pc of the t Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes Being the Account of the Work carried on and of the Collections made by an Expedition during the years 1899 and 1900 Edited by J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A. Fellow of Gonville and Caius College and Balfour Student of the University of Cambridge. VOLUME I. PART I. With Plates I —V and Text-Illustrations i —23 Cambridge : at the University Press. 1 90 : CAMBRIDGE PRINTED BY J. AND C. P. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PKESS. PEEEACE. In March, 1899, I left England, in pursuance of my appointment as Balfour Student of the University of Cambridge, with a commission to explore and investigate the Coral Reefs of the Laccadives, Maldives, and Ceylon. As the south-west monsoon is unsuitable for work from small craft in the Indian Ocean, it was proposed to devote the summer of 1899 to a thorough survey of the atoll of Minikoi, the most southern reef of the Laccadives. In regard to subsequent work the Managers of the Balfour Studentship gave me complete latitude to do as might seem fit. Subsequent donations of £300 from the Government Grant, administered by the Royal Society, and of £30 from the British Association, decided me to proceed in October to the Maldive Archipelago for an extended winter cruise. The latter was entirely successful in its main results, although the expedition was considerably curtailed and seriously crippled owing to the general rise in prices caused by the war in South Africa. I would like here to express the indebtedness of my party to His Excellency Sir E. Noel Walker, K.C.M.G., late Acting-Governor of Ceylon; to the Hon. Mr Taylor, C.M.G., late Acting-Colonial Secretary ; to His Highness Mohammadu Imaduddin, Sultan of the Maldives, and his Viziers ; to the Board of Trade for passages to and fro between Ceylon and Minikoi; to Capt. Channer, R.N., formerly an officer of H.M.S. Challenger, now Super- intendent of Lighthouses in the Ceylon district, for many valuable hints and much local information ; to Sheikh Jeevunjee Noorbhai for his generous help and assistance during the time we were in the Maldives ; to Rear-Admiral Sir W. Wharton, Hydrographer, for advice and loan of scientific instruments ; to Dr David Sharp for taking charge of the insect collections ; to Sir John Murray, K.C.B., Prof Judd and Prof. Agassiz for advice and assistance in many ways; and indeed to all kind friends and contributors for their aid. Above all I wish to acknowledge the great obligations of myself and my party to Mr Adam Sedgwick for his great assistance and very active interest in the progress and work of the expedition. In the work I was voluntarily assisted by Mr L. A. Borradaile (Selwyn College) and Mr C. Forster Cooper (Trinity College), who have largely contributed to whatever measure of success may have been attained. During five weeks in March and April, 1900, Mr Forster Cooper took charge of the work single-handed at a time when I was in- capacitated by fever. My thanks are also due to Capt. Molony, S.S. Ileafaee, for his help in surveying Suvadiva and Addu atolls ; and further to Mr Geo. Sheldrake, in charge of S.S. Thruuscoe, during our visit stranded on Minikoi, for practical help on many occasions. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. PART I. Reports. 1. Introduction : Narrative and Route of the Expedition. With Text-Figs. 1 and 2 1 By J. Stanle" Gardiner, M.A. 2. The Maldive and Laccadive Groups, with Notes on other Coral Formations in the Indian Ocean. With Plates I and II, Text- Figs. .3 — 11 12 By J. Stanley Gardiner, M.A. .3. Hymenoptera ........... 51 By P. Cameron. 4. Land Crustaceans. With Plate III, Text-Figs. 12—23 . 64 By L. A. Borradaile, jNI.A., Lecturer in Natural Sciences of Selwyn College, Cambridge. 5. Nemerteans. With Plates IV and V 101 By R. C. Pdnnett, B.A. INTEODUCTION. NARRATIVE AND ROUTE OF THE EXPEDITION. (With 2 Maps.) At the end of March, 1899, I left England for Ceylou in the company of Mr L. A. Borradaile. On arrival at Colombo we found that the Board of Trade s.s. Ceylon had just left for Minikoi owing to a wreck on that atoll. This necessitated a delay of seven weeks, before we could hope to sail thither, a detention further increased to eight weeks owing to stress of weather. Mr Borradaile accordingly proceeded to the Jaffna Peninsula, where he spent a month in familiarising himself with the life and conditions on coral reefs. I meantime prepared our stores, and made arrangements for the Maldive cruise, subse- quently visiting the raised limestone hills and area of the north of Ceylon'. After returning to Colombo I traversed the entire coast between Negombo and Dondra Head, a distance of about 120 miles. Mr Borradaile joined me, and we then settled down for a fortnight at Weligama—the Beligam of Prof. Haeckel—where there is a deep bay with reefs of small size across its entrance. The rich variety of animal life on the reefs both here and off the Jaffna coast as compared to the reefs of the Maldives and Minikoi is a most noticeable feature. After a tedious week's detention in Colombo, we finally left Ceylon for Minikoi on June 17th, experiencing a very heavy north-west gale the whole way; in spite of this the sea one night was white with phosphorescence, a very unusual phenomenon in these waters. We located ourselves, and built a bungalow at a distance of about one-third of a mile from the south-west end of Minikoi island, under the shadow of the lighthouse, the boat belonging to which was through the kindness of Capt. Channer, R.N., freely placed at our disposal. The island here is about 470 yards across between tide-marks, and a broad ride has been cut, giving the only open space of any size in the island. The vegetation is extremely dense, and forms a low jungle of Pandarms, Hibiscus, Hernandea, Ricinus, coconut and other trees, with Pemphis acidula, Scaevola koenigii and Tournefovtea argentea on the shores. At the south-west end of the island is a shrine, the grave of a holy, Moslem sheikh, connected by a good, .shaded path with the village in the centre of 1 Vide Report Brit. Ass., pp. 400—2, 1900. 2 J. STANLEY GAEDINER. the island. A small settlement formerly existed round the shrine, but it has long been abandoned, and the jungle near it is now far thicker and less trodden than elsewhere. The land has the same character up to the village, but further north it is much more open, and can indeed be traversed almost anywhere'. Our situation then was not unnaturally the best possible for the land fauna, on which the lighthouse lamp too had doubtless no inconsiderable influence. The open ride formed both by night and day our best collecting ground, sugaring never meeting with any measure of success elsewhere. For marine observations and collecting, we had within a stone's throw of the house on the seaward face of the island a broad reef-flat, on which the sea continually breaks. Towards the north this gradually narrows, but westwards broadens, and continues round the atoll. A broad boulder zone, which can be waded conveniently up to half- tide, extends the main (Minikoi) island inside the reef- flat to Wiringili and thence to Ragandi and round the atoll. These islets are mere rocky patches, the former with a few coconut trees, under the shade of which strangers are buried. Towards the lagoon there is a great sand-flat, exposed at spring tides from 100 to 200 yards from the beach. The situation was also chosen, as during the summer months the south-west monsoon blows, the effect of which I wished particularly to study. Unfortunately the monsoon of 1899 was very abnormal, the prevailing winds coming from west to west-north-west until the second week in August, when the proper monsoon commenced, bringing heavy rain in its train. The latter made work extremely difficult and unjjleasant ; the bottom could nowhere be seen on account of the surface disturbance; bottom living animals contracted, or retired into the sand or other shelters; the surface fauna sank to considerable depths. The disadvantages of the position lay in the considerable distance of the house from the village and from the north passage into the lagoon, through which alone access to the open sea could be obtained in this monsoon.