18 Lieut. R. E. Vanghan and Staff-Surg. K. II. Jones 



The part of China dealt with in this article is contained 

 in the provinces of Kwang Tung and Kwang Si, and lies 

 just to the south of the northern Tropic line (see Plate lA^.). 

 The island of Hong Kong, a Crown Colony annexed in 1841, 

 is bare, mountainous, and I'ocky in the higher portions of its 

 surface, but, thanks to the foresight and protection of the 

 British Government, remarkably well wooded, for the most 

 part Avith fir-trees, on all its lower slopes. 



The hills of the island do not rise to a greater height 

 than about 1800 feet, and above tbe limit of the trees are 

 generally covered with short wiry grass. The formation 

 is chiefly granite, and in many of the ravines and valley- 

 bottoms, and along the sea-shore in most places, there are 

 blocks and boulders of this rock, often of titanic size and 

 fantastic shape, which have been left where they lie by 

 the gradual erosion of the softer parts of the original 

 matrix. These great rocks are often piled together as if by 

 some sudden cataclysm, and i)rescnt absolutely inaccessible 

 breeding-places for Mi/ioplioneus ceeruJeus and doubtless for 

 otlier birds and small mammals. 



On the northern side of Hong Kong is the city of Victoria, 

 and a little to the east of it is the well-known Happy Valley, 

 or Wan hai Cheong. 



Oj)posite to Hong Kong is the Kowloon Peninsula, part 

 of the so-called New Territory which was taken over by the 

 British Government in 1899 ; it has an area considerably 

 greater than 300 square miles, and forms apart of the main- 

 land of China. The country about Kowloon resembles that 

 of Hong Kong, except that, like most parts of the Chinese 

 mainland in these latitudes, it is very poorly wooded. The 

 trees are chiefly small firs, and from these the Chinese cut 

 off' the lower branches long before they have attained any 

 size. 



In the vicinity of temples and behind most of the villages 

 are thick clumps of trees, chiefly False Banyans and various 

 species of Ficus. Many of these trees are covered with strips 

 of the common red lucky paper, though Avhy, no one seems 



