FASCICULI MALATENSES 
XXXV 
stanniferous veins in the rock, and its flanks are strewn with large granite 
boulders. Towards the south it is very steep, with curious gaps and caverns, 
but the northern slope, with which we are best acquainted, is gradual. On 
this side a large area has been cleared, reaching as high as about a thousand 
feet, but most of it is now overgrown with secondary growth, and, above, the 
jungle is virgin, except for an old clearing, at about 2,500 feet, which was 
orginally made by tin prospectors, but afterwards occupied as a place of 
retreat by the monks of a Buddhist monastery at Sai Kau. 
This clearing, in which we stayed, is overgrown with long grass, brush- 
wood and wild bananas ; the plate of jungle on Bukit Besar gives a good idea 
of the vegetation both in such deserted clearings and in the ancient jungle 
surrounding them, but the small trees in the foreground are durian trees, which 
the monks have planted. On the lower slopes of the mountain the trees are 
high, with slender trunks, which are usually almost free of epiphytes, though 
ferns and orchids abound on the tree-tops. Above 3,000 feet bamboo thickets 
are common, while about 300 feet below the peak a sudden and complete 
change takes place in the flora, the trees becoming low and stunted, and their 
trunks being wreathed in moss, lichen, ferns, orchids and other epiphytes, 
among which we were surprised not to see a single pitcher plant. The ground 
orchid, Annectochilus, is abundant among the undergrowth, growing where 
there is a thin layer of soil over rock, and the summits of some of the large 
boulders in the jungle are buried in ferns and in the foliage and blossoms of 
a white-flowered orchid belonging to the genus Calanthe. Comparatively few 
of the tree orchids have conspicuous flowers, but a certain number were very 
beautiful, while the large seed-vessels of others, which scattered an impalable 
powder of seed at a touch, showed that the blossoms had not been small. 
Two forms of vegetation may be mentioned as being connected with the 
fauna in a very special way, viz., (1) the gingerworts and wild bananas, and (2) 
certain forest trees, the trunks of which are strengthened by the outgrowth 
of laterally projecting buttresses at their base. Occasionally these buttresses 
coalesce at their free extremity, thus forming cavities in which dead leaves and 
rain water collect, and when this occurs, a regular microcosmos is the result. 
Between the buttresses of one such tree, in the water or on its surface, the 
following species were taken : — the lizard, Gonatodes affinis, which sought 
shelter in the water when disturbed ; the snake, Tropidonotus chrysargus, 
feeding on the spawn of the frog, Ixalus horridus ; the water bug, 
Rhagovelia insignis , which covered the surface in a little cloud and was not 
seen on any pool or stream in the neighbourhood ; the larva of a dragon fly ; 
the pupa and adult of a Tipulid, and the larvae of several other Diptera and 
