Notes and Comments
153
Chinese Spotted-necked Dove, Streptopelia chinensis chinensis (Scop.) Two other nests were found at Tsun Wan during June. We have, this year located several of their nests. The parents are very stupid at concealing them. They are very frail, being composed of a few roots woven loosely together with the result that the eggs, which always number two, can be seen from below.
Chinese Dayal Bird, Copsychus saularis prosthopellus Oberhsr. Two nests, each containing four young birds, were discovered, one at Kam Tin and the other at Tsun Wan. Both nests were built in the crevice of a ruined wall behind the village. These birds will always utilise the same hole year after year if unmolested. The nest found at Tsun Wan was built in the same crevice as the one found there the previous year.
Black-naped Oriole, Oriolus chinensis diffusus Sharpe. Every year a pair nests at Ting Kau behind the village at the 11th mile beach, Kowloon, and the young are invariably stolen by one or other of the village urchins. Visiting the place on June 5th I saw a lad with a young golden oriole which was more dead than alive. He told me he had found three young birds in a nest built on the large "loong-ngarn" tree, but two had died. offered him ten cents and he gladly sold me the bird. It was promptly fed with a few grass-hoppers and taken home. The bird survived and is now big and strong having just commenced a partial moult.
Its confiding nature prevents me from liberating it as the bird will come and perch on
the hand when called.
I
Chinese Hair-Crested Drongo, Chibia hottentotta brevirostris Cab. & H. Nest with four fully fledged young located near Kwei Chong. The young birds immediately jumped and flew out of the nest when the tree was climbed. One was eventually captured and examined and found to be similar to the adult but paler in shade. The occipital crest is entirely absent in the young
bird.
Chinese Francolin, Francolinus pintadeanus pintadeanus (Scop.). Three nests containing 4, 4, and 6 eggs found on the slopes of Tai Mo Shan by female grass-cutters of Lo Wai village. In one case the woman actually captured the hen which refused to leave the nest. Here it may interest readers to know that one of the francolin chicks I reared last year (see H.K.N. V, pp. 170-175. "Development of young francolins") laid four eggs. As she showed no signs of being broody the eggs were put under a common hen. All hatched out and are now fully fledged being approximately half the size of the grown-up bird.
BOTANY.
R. A. P.
The writer was much interested in the treatment of some of the species in the Genera Eria and Dendrobium as two of the species described represented species which were undetermined in the Herabrium and the Herbarium Orchid Garden at Lingnan University. It might be of interest to the readers of the Hong Kong Naturalist to know where this material came from.
Dendrobium acinaciforme Roxb. is represented by the live number 2803 collected in southern Hainan by Lau, Sam-Kee in April 1935, this
July 1935.
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