COLLECTING EXPEDITION TO BATANG PADANG. I31 
Having collected all the plants we could carry, we returned, 
reached the camp again at 6 P.M., having been to hours on 
the tramp. 
The next day, the gth, I spent in putting the previous day’s 
collection of plants into paper, and on the roth I took three 
photographs from the rocky ridge connecting the spur with the 
main mountains—one of the rocks which form the top of the 
spur, one of the summit of Batu Puteh, and one of the hills 
looking over in the direction of Gunong Bujang Malaka. 
The next day I looked over the dried plants and put all those 
which were dry into Chinese paper, and sent them down to 
Tapa onthe 12th. Up tothat time [had collected 241 species 
of plants and 61 specimens of birds. One serious drawback to 
the place was the great quantity of blow-flies, which, unless 
great care wastaken, spoiledallthe bird-skins, as wellas woollen 
clothes, blankets, food, &c. The strange thing about these flies 
is the question where they can be bred in the jungle, for, as I 
have already noticed, there is such a great scarcity of animal 
life, and consequently there can be but little decomposing 
matter for them to breed in. 
Woollen things are evidently taken by them for the fur of 
animals, hence dead animals are clearly the natural food of the 
larvee of these flies. Last year, near the Resident’s Cottage, 
I shot a krekah monkey, and hung it up to a tree till I return- 
ed, which was in about one hour’s time, when it was flecked 
all over with white eggs; but the blow-flies are not anything 
like so numerous on the Larut hills as they are on those of 
Batang Padang, probably because they are lower. The lowest 
altitude at which they are met with seem to be 3,600 feet, but 
they are not abundant till 4,000 feet is reached. 
On the 15th I went down the hill (goo feet by aneroid) and 
fixed on a site for a new camp, and set the men to work fell- 
ing the jungle. This place seemed to be more frequented by 
birds than the higher and bleaker camp, which was not at all 
a good collecting station for birds, and by that time I had 
about exhausted all the plants that were in fruit or flower near 
ite eoed number of the trees) felled were either in fruit or 
flower and I was able to add them to my collection. 
