44 AN ACCOUNT OF A BOTANICAL EXPEDITION 



On descending the pathway again we went along the 

 western face of the hill towards the North. The chestnut 

 swallow, Hirundo badia, darted about in an out of the caves, 

 where it seemed to be nesting. It is very common at all the 

 limestone hills in this region. 



The flat country at the base of the hill was covered with 

 a low and dense scrub of grass and bushes, with small trees, 

 very troublesome to get through. There were cow and wild 

 pig tracks, but they seemed to go nowhere except into the 

 densest thorny thickets. Eventually we pushed our way 

 through to the face of the hill again and returned to the hut 

 for lunch. After this we followed a road past the hill to- 

 wards the North, and collected in the low woods on this side, 

 where in the morning we had heard the shouts of a party of 

 Malays chasing mouse-deer (Tragulus) into a net. The soil 

 at the foot of the hill is rich and red and there is a small 

 plantation of coconuts and some young rubber trees here. 

 The locality was an excellent botanical one and we had both 

 of the collecting books full before we started homeward with 

 the gharry, walking till we came to the ricefields and filling 

 up the gharry itself with new or rare plants So much did we 

 get this day that it took all the morning of the next day to 

 put them into presses, and make a further supply of the 

 frames for them. In the afternoon, which was very rainy, 

 we walked across the fields towards a hill, called Bukit Telor 

 Jambu, and found some grand plants of Vanda gigantea with 

 long spikes of its large yellow and brown flowers. They 

 were growing on a tree of Dolichandrone. Next day we 

 crossed the fields to this hill to explore it and came to a dry 

 grassy spot leading to a path between the limestone cliffs. 

 Here we saw a vulture on its nest in the top of a tall tree. 

 The nest was of large size and built of sticks. Other vultures 

 were sitting on the branches. There were many nests of the 

 Weaver bird, (Ploceus sp.) on a betelnut palm. Most of them 

 were built of grass in the ordinary way, but one was formed 

 of the twisted up leaflet of the palm from the end of which it 

 hung. The leaflet seemed to have been folded so as to make 



Tour. Straits Branch 



