52 AN ACCOUNT OF A BOTANICAL EXPEDITION 



By the second day the smaller vultures had left and the 

 carcass had much shrunk and on the third day nothing was 

 left but the hide and bones. The decay near the shoulder 

 where the carcass touched the ground had allowed the big 

 vultures to lift the hide and finish the flesh of the otherwise 

 inaccessible portions, the upper foreleg was completely pulled 

 out of the skin and the bone of the lower jaw taken to some 

 distance. Another bullock's skeleton I saw had been cleaned 

 up in the same way. The destruction of so large an animal 

 through the only small opening at which the birds could get 

 at the viscera in so short a time was sufficiently striking, 

 though of course, the flies which were in millions around the 

 carcass played a large part in the destruction of the soft parts. 

 The vultures were extremely cowardly for I saw even the 

 large ones chased away by a very small black pariah pup, who 

 pursued the huge birds springing into the air after them. The 

 vultures are known as Burong Eriang by the Malays. They 

 are absent from the lower part of the Malay Peninsula, I have 

 seen them as far South as Bukit Mertajam, but there 

 are two resords of stray birds having been seen in Singa- 

 pore and I once saw two flying over Tanglin at a great 

 height. 



They were very abundant at Perlis and Setul, but it is 

 difficult to see what most of them managed to find to eat, and 

 they must have often gone without food for long periods. 



14th. We went in the morning along the road towards the 

 river, and rambled to the mangrove swamp edge of it, then along 

 a Gelam wood, and to some pasture land. We put up several 

 snipe here. The most interesting plants met with were the 

 minute Stylidiiim with its bright mauve flowers, and a small 

 herbaceous Osbeckia and a beautiful crimson-flowered mallow, 

 {Decaschistia). At one spot were numerous large tussocks of 

 the curious sedge Tricostularia borneensis which I formerly 

 got at Pekan. 



We found a nest of the common turtledove Turtur 

 tigrinus with one egg, in a bush. Caprimulgus macrurus was 

 nesting too, we found eggs on the heath, a few days before. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



