TO LOWER SI AM. 45 



a ball, leaving a hole at the side into which I saw the bird 

 enter ; unfortunately it was too high to reach. I certainly 

 never before saw a weaver bird make its nest in this way. The 

 wood produced a number of interesting plants including a tall 

 erect rattan like a Bactris, the stems about 15 feet tall and 

 over an inch through growing in a tuft. We later found this 

 palm common about Perlis and Setul in wet spots. It was 

 Calamus arborescens. A very pretty bushy Ixora with delicate 

 white feathery blossoms was new to me, and further on in 

 open grassy country we found the curious Amorphophallws 

 Bex in full flower. At the foot of a high precipitous cliff 

 where we lunched, the ground was very dry and dusty and 

 was evidently the resort of numerous jungle fowl, whose 

 scratchings and foot prints were very conspicuous. We put 

 up four large brown fishing owls, Ketupa javanensis appa- 

 rently; these seem to be very common about the rocky hills 

 all over this country, and on the way back across the rice- 

 fields, came upon four black and white storks Xenorrhyn- 

 chus Asiaticus which seemed very tame and allowed us to 

 approach close to them, only flying to a short distance when 

 we came within a few yards and settling again- They ap- 

 peared to be feeding on the small fish and crabs which abound 

 in the shallow water of the ricefields. The natives catch the 

 fish in these places with a cone shaped rattan basket with a 

 series of strips of cane across the broad end arranged so that 

 when they plump the basket broad end down over the fish 

 they see swimming in the shallow water, the fish are caught 

 in the basket and cannot escape. We saw a party, man, 

 woman and a boy catching fish like this at Chupeng. A similar 

 trap is used in New Guinea. 



On the 7th, we again went across the river to Bukit Lagi 

 and walked along the base of the rock through the wet fields. 

 There are many curious shaped caves of no great size at the 

 base of this hill tenanted largely by monitor lizards {Varanus.) 

 The mud of some of the cavern floors was densely covered 

 with foot tracks of these animals, some evidently very large. 

 In one damp spot among the rocks we first found the birds 



R. A. Soc, No. 59. 19". 



