34 JOURNAL, NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY OF 81 AM Vol. I. 



Whaie" or "Tao Pek." These rocky and stony hills are as a rale 

 sparsely covered with a small Bamboo (Siamese, "MaiRuak") and 

 trees of the Shorea ohtusa and rohusta species, with scattered clumps 

 of coarse grass and a few deciduous trees and shrubs. But in the dry 

 season the vegetation on these hills is baked brown ; and generally 

 jungle fires sweep over them annually. Live tortoises have been 

 found with their shells scorched, and except for the dead leaves, fallen 

 from the trees, it is hard to find what they feed on during the dry 

 months of February, March and April. Two small ones brought into 

 camp, and tethered by the hinder edges of the shells, died in 36 hours 

 though not exposed to greater heat than they experienced on the 

 hills, but death was probably due to exhaustion from tugging at 

 their tethers. 



The Flora of the more precipitous limestone crags is peculiar 

 and mostly deciduous — the yellowish brown appearance of the hills in 

 the dry season being strikingly difierenb to the bright green of the 

 rains. Man}^ of the trees flower in the dry months and have acquired 

 a bulbous trunk, presumably for the storage of moisture. 



A species of cactus grows up to an elevation of 400 metres — the 

 branches being triangular in section, and both this and the flat oval- 

 branched species occur on the wastes near the coast. Brandis, in his 

 work on Indian trees, only mentions the branched species ( 0. dillenii ) 

 or Prickly Pear. Whether or no the three-sided species has been more 

 recently introduced, and not yet run wild in India, 1 cannot say. 

 A third species, observed only near habitations, has branches up to 1 

 metre in length, and in section the branch is six-winged, the flutings 

 being about 5 cms. in depth. 



Ground orchids, and the tree orchids which occur, are not 

 conspicuous. Small maiden hair ferna, either deciduous or annual, 

 spring up as the rains commence. 



The Slightly Undulating Country and the Foothills. 



The third and fourth classes of country insensibly merge one 

 with the other, and since the Fauna are the .same or migrate from one 

 to the other according to season, I will take both together. 



Continuing with the Flora. The magnificient " Ton yang" or 

 Wood-oil tree, growing on the river banks or near underground water, 

 as a rule does not occur below the 6 metre line, and rarel}' extends 

 above the 80 metre line from sea level, where it is replaced by //. 



