328 The Philippine Journal of Science i9i8 



visited the forests back of the town and began the series of 

 observations on which these notes are based. Leaving Puerto 

 Princesa that night I arrived next morning at Brooke's Point 

 which remained my headquarters for most of the remaining time. 



Brooke's Point, or Point Sir James Brooke, is the name given 

 to a sandy spit at the northern end of Ipolote Bay, a shallow 

 harbor on the eastern coast of Palawan near its southern end. 

 The adjoining region consists of a low sandy beach at the very 

 edge of which begins a hardwood forest, overgrown with vines, 

 creepers, and underbrush, extending inland for an average dis- 

 tance of a kilometer, there giving way to a grassy plain, marked 

 with occasional thickets and scattered trees and bushes, which 

 reaches to the mountains in the interior. Small streams and 

 tidal swamps intersect the region with fringing vegetation of 

 mangrove, nipa palms, or bamboo, the last occurring more com- 

 monly in the more open country. The whole area is nearly level 

 until the mountains are reached. Outwardly the beach is fringed 

 by coral reefs or sandbars or is open to the sea. 



There is a small Moro settlement, Lara, at Brooke's Point and 

 in the surrounding country may be found occasional huts of the 

 Tagbanuas, sometimes with a greater or less amount of cultivated 

 or cleared land nearby. These clearings and the native trails 

 are the only open spaces of any great size in the forest, although 

 certain parts of the latter are of a more open nature than 

 others. It was along the trails that I did most of my collecting. 

 Progress was difficult in the virgin jungle, and the birds there 

 were not easy to approach. Moreover the species to be found 

 there were usually near the trails in greater abundance. Con- 

 sequently I found that the time spent in breaking a way through 

 trackless areas could usually be more profitably spent in follow- 

 ing a pathway that was already cleared. 



L collected in the vicinity of Brooke's Point from March 5, 

 the date of my arrival there, until the evening of March 17. 

 On that date I embarked in a small launch with Governor Reid 

 and Mr. Tobin, whose kindness made it possible for me to ac- 

 company them on an inspection trip around the southern end 

 of the island and thus to visit a portion of the territory that 

 otherwise I would not have seen. 



March 18 we arrived at Sarong, a small village situated at 

 the foot of a rocky bluff, which was overgrown with low jungle 

 and extended along the shore. The principal feature of inter- 

 est here was a broad coral reef, which was exposed at low tide 

 and formed a feeding ground for numerous shore birds and 



