=OIL PALM.= =Localities and the Influence of Position.=—_Elæis guineensis_ is found generally throughout the country from the sea-board towards the interior, diminishing in those districts where the climate becomes drier or where rocky and mountainous tracts intervene. In places, owing, doubtless, to the wasteful methods of treatment and the carelessness in burning the “bush” for farms, extensive areas without palms are occasionally met with, even where the soil and climatic conditions are not unfavourable to their growth. In the extreme north, where the rainfall diminishes, the tree is only found in the vicinity of streams. The most suitable situation for growth seems to be one in which the soil is generally rather moist, although swampy, ill-drained land is not favourable. In those parts of the country where a gravelly laterite appears as a surface soil over a deep substratum of syenite, trees may often be met with in considerable numbers, but it is observed that the trunks of such trees do not acquire the same thickness as those growing in a damper and lighter soil. It is probable, although no experiments have yet been made affording direct evidence for the conclusion, that the fertility and yield of fruits of the trees growing upon the flat lands are greater than those established upon the higher undulating country because they are subject to less wash and more natural irrigation. It is also quite possible that the variety of palm fruit produced in the former places will be found to furnish better commercial results. No distinct varieties are, however, recognised by the natives, although distinctive names are applied to the same fruit in different stages of development. The oil palm does not appear to be able to thrive in heavy forest, and in a natural state occupies open valleys with low undergrowth, but upon the clearance of primary forest it soon becomes established. The seeds or nuts, which are large and heavy, are distributed by the agency of frugivorous birds and mammals. The grey parrot, for example, may be observed extracting the ripe fruits from the heads or picking them from the ground where they have fallen, and, after conveying these to a convenient tree, carefully removing the oily pericarp before dropping the nut in a new position. Monkeys doubtless convey the fruits to even greater distances in their cheek-pouches. Owing to the presence of rocky and swampy strips of country in the Protectorate, and the direction in which farm fires have been carried by the prevailing winds, the distribution of palms has been thought to assume the character of “belts,” defined by fairly well-marked boundaries. When looked into more closely, however, the distribution appears to be better described as consisting of dense patches linked sometimes by almost unrecognisable chains of widely scattered trees, and often broken into by short ranges of hills which are completely destitute of palms.