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In appearance and also, as we found later, in taste these Chinese mushrooms could not be told from English ones. Their gathering was the last event of the day. It was high time to start back or it would be dark before we reached the car. Regretfully therefore we returned to the little stone bridge and left the valley.
However before long we were back again. In fact we came many times that spring and on each visit penetrated the valley a little deeper or examined it from a fresh angle. And never did we have a really blank day. Our interests were varied and we left it to the valley to settle which, on any one day, should take precedence. Ornithology would be favoured on one day, on another botany. We started with no preconceived intentions but searched streamside, cultivation or woodland as circumstances indicated. Taken all round however, the most productive hunting grounds, catering for all tastes, were the villages and their surroundings. It was by Hang
Ha Po that we discovered the first birds' nests, one, in the top of a water banian, belonging to a Black-faced Babbler and another, sewn to a large fig leaf, owned by a Tailor-bird. There too the botanist found much of in- terest among the weeds that grew on the waste ground in front of the huts. The False Ipecacuanha (Asclepias currassavica) was most abundant and its orange-red flowers made a fine splash of colour setting off the white trumpet blooms of the Datura alba that grew alongside. Very common on the banks and rough walls that separated the village holdings was the curious Bryophyllum calycinum. Cactus or prickly pear, intended to keep out maraudering goats, topped these banks as a rule and in some places there were rough hedges, equally thorny, among which the opened pods of the Fruit climber Abrus precatorius displayed its black-spotted scarlet seeds. trees such as the pomelo, pawpaw and lime grew about the village and behind it the Lychee, the Litsea, the Rose Apple (Eugenia jambos) and others. The culmination of tree growth was the grove, a dark shady wood In its inner sunless of tall trees with great fern clad buttressed trunks. depths wild life was scarce in the early part of the year but the outskirts always repaid a search. The butterfly hunter in particular found plenty to occupy him on the sunny side of the grove and also on the village waste lands. Blue barred Danais similis, dark Euplocas that only occasionally showed their deep violet markings and the brown Lethe europa, its female conspicuous by the broad white band on the forewing, all were to be had in plenty. There was a White too, Pieris canidia, closely resembling our small Garden White (P. rapae) and the large and brilliant Papilio family was represented by the black and red Papilio memnon, a shade lover, and by the rapid flying Papilio antiphates with the orange tail.
In April the grove itself awoke, Butterflies became more numerous than ever on its outskirts and many gaily coloured caterpillars found suc- culent feeding on the undergrowth within. Groups of Candle flies were to be seen on the tree trunks, seemingly asleep but alert enough when one tried to catch them. The grating call of the Cicada, a large yellow and black variety, arose on every hand. But the most marked change in the wild life of the grove took place amongst the birds. Magpies had been in possession since February and now had youngsters in their nest.
Their
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sway over the woodland was almost undisputed for only a few Doves and Tits had shared the place with them. Now other bird folk hurried in. From the marshlands came Herons and Egrets returning to the valley of their birth. For a while one saw them gathered on the newly flooded paddy fields the pure white Little Egrets, the Cattle Egrets wearing their orange breeding plumes and the Pond Herons chestnut headed and black backed, showing no white at all till they opened their wings in flight. Not for long however could they afford to idle. There was much work to be done. None of the last year's nests in the grove remained; all had to be rebuilt. So the colony was soon hard at work. To and fro, throughout the day, flew the birds, bearing sticks to their nests. From every quarter of the compass they came and what a bubbling and squawking arose at each arrival. By mid-April most of the nests were well advanced and by the end of the There were other month many, perhaps the majority, contained eggs. birds besides these Herons that came to nest in the grove. Early in April a very kingfisher-like call was to be heard among the trees and glimpses We sus- might be caught of the sable plumaged Koel chasing its mate. pected this couple to have been responsible for the strange eggs that was found a week or so later in the untidy nest a Black-necked Mynah had built high up in a tree on the grove's edge. Some of its secrets the grove guarded too well for us. It never, for instance, showed us where the Barbet nested. We heard the bird's plaintive 'uloo-uloo-uloo' continuously; often 100 we saw the caller either flying from one grove to another or perched in a tree when we could without much difficulty approach beneath and watch it at close quarters whilst it reiterated its curious plaint. There must have been a pair of Barbets in practically every grove in the valley. And, what is more, there were old trees so riddled with the birds' nesting holes that they must have been in use for generations. Yet we failed to find a single new nest and the villagers could (or would) not help in the matter.
Our party broke up at the end of April. We had by no means exhausted the possibilities of the valley. Indeed it is a place that would be worth keeping in touch with throughout the year, A final visit, a descent into the valley from Tai-mo-shan, following a steep watercourse abounding in falls and crossing tracts of really tropical vegetation where tree ferns, wild plants, rare orchids and countless botanical treasures grew luxuriantly, showed that Lam Tsun valley has fields that we never really touched. They await a fresh band of bug hunters.
BIRDS OF THE LAM TSUN VALLEY. Nesting species are marked.* Black-faced Babbler, Dryonastes p. perspicillatus.*
*
I.
2.
Great Chinese Barbet, Megalaima v. virens.*
3-
Chinese Blackbird, Turdus merula mandarinus.
4.
Chinese Bulbul, Pycnonotus sinensis_sinensis.*
5.
Chinese Red-vented Bulbul, Molpastes hæmorrhous chrysorrhoides.
6.
Chinese Red-whiskered Bulbul, Orocompsa emeria jocosa.
7. Little Bunting, Emberiza pusila.
The Hong Kong Naturalist.
May 1932.
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