COLLECTING EXPEDITION TO BATANG PADANG. T45 
The 23rd and 24th were both very wet days, and on the latter 
it hardly stopped raining at all, so that not much could be done ; 
but [had some trees cut down to get a specimen of the gigantic 
rattan known by the Malay name of rotan kumbah. 
It was about 200 feet in length and at the thickest part of 
the cane, which 1s near the top it measured 5 inches in diameter. 
Near the root, however, the cane only measured $ of an inch. 
The leaves were 24 feet in length and armed with most 
formidabie hooked thorns. ‘The fruit 1s borne on the terminal 
shoot and forms a tassell-shaped bunch some 8 or ro feet in 
length. From what I have seen of this rattan I believe it only 
fruits once and then dies. Four of the trees that were felled 
were either in fruit or flower so that the work was not thrown 
away. We also collected a rather handsome bird, with a bright 
orange-vermilion bill. It appears to be a species of the genus 
Rhinocichla. In the evening of the 24th we got a second 
specimen of the large red-headed trogon. 
The weather from the 25th to the 31st continued very wet 
anaecold a with the exception of one day, the 26th; on the 
preceding evening the thermometer went down to 62° in the 
house at about 8 P. M., the coldest I saw at the lower camp. 
The highest temperature I noticed while there was 78°. The 
climate, therefore, corresponds very closely with that of Max- 
well’s Hill in Larut. 
I had a great many trees felled during this period and pre- 
served specimens of all that were either in fruit or flower. 
By this means I secured specimens of some of the larger trees, 
which, of course, it is hopeless to get in any other way. Had 
I had a telescope ora binocular this work would have been 
much easier. As it was many of the trees when felled were 
found to have neither fruit nor flower. However on some of 
these I found epiphytes, parasites and creepers of interest. 
Among the parasites were two plants closely allied to the 
English mistletoe, one being an almost exact resemblance of it 
but slightly smaller, the other had rather rounder leaves. 
In the jungle near the camp I found a fine fir tree. It was 
fully one hundred feet in height and had a trunk of between 4 
and 5 feet in.diameter. From what I could see of it I fancy it 
is a different variety to that I mentioned a short time ago, but 
