19^^-] recently collected in Siam. 77 



second day progress was stopped by wide and deep in- 

 undations. As the country through which we passed was 

 covered with scrub, bamboo, or open jungle, in which 

 we saw scarcely any signs of mammals or birds, there 

 was no inducement to make a camp; so we returned 

 immediately to Korat. It was impossible not to admire 

 the way in which the Siamese 'Mcwien" (a bullock-cart 

 built without a scrap of metal of any sort) negociated the 

 floods and, in many places, the appalling tracks through 

 the roadless bush. 



From Korat we went back westward about thirty miles to 

 Lat Bua Kao. From the village gently-rising forested hills, 

 which I had planned to visit, were visible to the south ; but 

 heavy rain, followed by a 25-foot rise of a river between, 

 and the washing away of the only bridge put an end to 

 hopes in that direction, and we had to be content with 

 Avorking the country to the north of the village. This 

 consisted of scrub and bamboo, and a few patches of very 

 poor dense forest which harboured scarcely any vertebrates. 

 After a fortnight interest in this locality began to diminish, 

 and we returned to Bangkok. 



Next I went to Sriracha, on the west coast of the Inner 

 Gulf, and, hiring a mat-sailed " rua-pet '' about 35 feet 

 long, visited the islands to the south as far as Koh Mesan, 

 off Cape Liant, and spent two or three days ashore at the 

 village of Sata-hip in Shelter Bay before returning to 

 Bangkok again after ten days' absence. Birds were very 

 scarce at all places visited during the cruise. 



The next collecting-place was the village of Pak Bu, in 

 the rice-fields near the mouth of the Tachin River or 

 Nam Supan, about twenty miles west of Bangkok ; only 

 three or four days were spent in this locality, as it was 

 soon exhausted. 



The final excursion was a ten days' visit to Koh Lak, 

 situated on the east coast of the Gulf of Siam in about 

 lat. 11° 50' N. ; again floods cut us ofi' from the forest 

 and the hills and confined us to the open country near the 

 shore. 



