140 AN EXPEDITION TO CHRISTMAS ISLANDS. 



they were more scanty. Among them I several times found 

 two species of Coprinus both resembling species I have met 

 with in Singapore, but these are so delicate and fugacious that 

 before we could get them home they had utterly perished. 

 Polypori, Polysticti and other woody fungi were very abundant 

 on decayed wood and a large number were collected. I 

 noticed in them a great scarcity of beetles. Usually these 

 woody fungi are the prey of innumerable beetles of several dif- 

 ferent groups, but here I could find few or no traces of these 

 insects even in old specimens. Two of the fungi here are 

 eaten by natives. One is Hirneola Anriculw-Judce, the well- 

 known Jew's ear fungus, known to Malays as chendawan Telinga. 



The other is a white agaricus which is very common on 

 dead wood; a very poor kind of food. 



In the evening I walked along the cemetery road collec- 

 ting. 



On the next day, 29th, I walked with Mr. Macpherson to 

 Phosphate Hill, and examined the quarries. Many of the 

 introduced weeds from Flying Fish Cove have found their 

 way up here already, the seeds carried up doubtless on the 

 clothes of the coolies, but besides these I found the common 

 grass Setaria glauca and the little yellow Convolvulus Ipomea 

 ehrysndes there which I found nowhere else, both new 

 records for the Islands. Pigeons were very abundant here, as 

 the trees on the fruit of which they particularly feed were 

 bearing heavily. These trees are Sideroxylon and Cryptoearya. 

 The coolies here were felling many trees to clear the ground 

 for further excavations, and this gave me an opportunity of 

 getting good specimens of the above; mentioned trees. — Her- 

 navdia and a common tree with bipinnate leaves and rather 

 hard green drupes. Of this latter I was never able to procure 

 flowers, and have not yet identified * but it was not obtained 

 apparently by Andrews. Passing through the coolie lines, 

 we went along a track which had been cut for drainage 

 and abandoned, and came to the edge of a high cliff from 

 which could be obtained a beautiful view of North East Point. 



*Tristiriopsis nativltatls Hemsley 



.four. Straits Brunch 



