XIV 
FASCICULI MALATENSES 
the orchards of the-district are famous throughout Lower Siam. The journey 
from Senggora to Lampam can be done in a day by boat, if there is no wind, 
and if sufficient boatmen be employed, but it took me two days and part of 
a night, owing to the choppy character of the waves in May. I spent two 
nights at Lampam, waiting for an elephant to take my baggage to Trang, and 
there procured the skeleton of a Siamese child. I also noted a curious 
insect that I had taken at the same place in 1889, namely, an aquatic glow- 
worm (apparently the larva of some Malacoderm beetle), which is common 
in the swamps round the town. 
The Taleh Sap. This extraordinary lake, known to the Malays as Laut 
Dalam (the Inner Sea), is nearly fifty miles long and of very variable breadth, but 
not, save for a few deep pockets, more than a few feet deep. To the south 
it communicates freely with the sea, and a canal has been cut between a point 
near its northern limit and the coast, though there does not appear to exist 
any such natural channel as that marked on many maps, which very possibly, 
however, has recently disappeared. Another artificial channel, known as 
Klong Sukhum, in honour of Phya Sukhum, the Siamese High Commissioner, 
who directed its construction, now joins the Taleh Sap to the Ligor River. 
The waters of the lake, at any rate in December, March, April, and May, are 
only slightly brackish, though the tides are felt in the Lampam River. The 
islands with which it is dotted are either low and marshy or consist of lime- 
stone peaks rising abruptly from the water. The latter afford in the caves 
with which they are riddled a breeding-place for Collocalia innominata , the 
edible nests of which are extremely valuable, while the reed-beds round the 
other islands and along the shore shelter innumerable water-fowl, especially the 
cotton teal, Nettapus coromandelianus , and the tree-duck, Dendrocygna javanica , 
which is generally called a teal in the Straits. There is a small cetacean, 
probably a species of Platanista , in the lake, and a viviparous sting-ray is caught 
off Lampam, where sharks are said also to occur. The centre appears to be 
almost devoid of animal and vegetable life, though a few minute worms were 
taken by Mr. Richard Evans and myself in 1899 ; but beds of Potamogeton 
and other water-weeds at the mouth of the Lampam River have evidently a 
very rich insect and crustacean fauna, while the fish from the same locality are 
partly marine and partly freshwater forms. The marine or lacustrine zoologist 
who was willing to be satisfied with minute and inconspicuous specimens 
would find a most interesting hunting-ground in this lake and its northern 
adjunct, the Taleh Noi, and although the people who inhabit the shores have 
an unenviable reputation among the Malays and Siamese, I never experienced 
anything but courtesy from them. 
NELSON ANNANDALE 
