From the report of P. Shungoomry Menowen, we derive the following account of the preparation of the nuts. There are various kinds in use. That used by families of rank is collected while the fruit is tender; the husk, or outer pod, is removed, the kernel, a round fleshy mass, is boiled in water. In the first boiling of the nut, when properly done, the water becomes red, thick, and starch like, and this is afterwards evaporated into a substance like catechu. The boiled nuts being now removed, sliced, and dried, the catechu-like substance is rubbed thereto, and dried again in the sun, when they become of a shining black colour, and are ready for use. Whole nuts, without being sliced, are also prepared in the same form for use. Ripe nuts, as well as young nuts in the raw state, are used by all classes of people, and ripe nuts preserved in water are also used by the higher classes. Nuts prepared in Travancore for exportation to Trichinopoly, Madura, and Coimbatore, are prepared in thin slices, coloured with red catechu or uncoloured. For Tinnevelly and other parts of the country, the nuts are prepared by merely cutting them into two or three slices and drying them. For Bombay, and other parts of the Northern Country, the nuts are exported in the form of whole nuts dried with the pods. The nut is chewed by both sexes indiscriminately in Malabar as well as on the Coromandel coast. In Malabar they mix it with betel leaf, chunam, and tobacco; but in Tinnevelly and other parts, tobacco is never added. The three ingredients for the betel, as commonly used, are, the sliced nut, the leaf of the betel pepper, in which the nut is rolled, and chunam, or powdered lime, which is smeared over the leaf. The areca nut is commonly known by the Malay name of _Pinang_, but in the Acheenese language it is called _Penu_, and the palm producing it _Ba Penu_. The ripe nut is called also _Penu massa_, and the green _Penu mudr_. The leaf of the betel pepper is called either _Ranu_ or _Siri_, and the lime _Chunam_ or _Gapu_. Tobacco, when used, is called _Bakun_. In China, the principal consumption of the nut as a masticatory is in the provinces of Quangton, Quang-se, and Che-keang; and it may be seen exposed for sale on little stalls about the suburbs of Canton with the other additional articles used in its consumption. It is also used in dyeing. In the central provinces of Hoo-kwang and Kang-si the nut is, after being bruised and pounded, mixed with the green food of horses as a preventive against diarrhœa, to which some kinds of food subjects them. The Chinese state that it is used as a domestic medicine in the North of China, some pieces being boiled, and the decoction administered. From them is also prepared a kind of cutch, or catechu, which is exported in great quantities, and is now used largely in this country, together with other kinds, as a tanning and dyeing material.