[ { "id": 204258, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1961", "page_number": 26, "title": "RAS-1961", "content_text": "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch\n\nRASHKB and author\n\nVol. 1 (1961)\n\nISSN 1991-7295\n\n23\n\nrelative, the Black-throated Laughing-thrush, which is confined to Hong Kong Island and is a handsome bird of black and grey with white cheeks. Not so rare but still uncommon is another relative, the Hwamei. This name means 'Painted Eyebrows', a tribute to the most distinctive part of its plumage, but more than anything the Hwamei is famed for its voice. To hear a chorus of these birds almost any evening of the year, their song rather like that of the European Song Thrush, is an unforgettable experience, and the pity is that this species is only really well known on Hong Kong Island, being very local elsewhere.\n\nOne of the most charming families of birds to be seen in the Colony is that of the flycatchers, none of which actually breed here, but either pass through on migration or spend the winter. The variety of plumage is quite bewildering and some of the more exotic species, like the Paradise Flycatcher with its eight inches of tail, the black-and-lemon coloured Narcissus and Tricolour Flycatchers, the malachite-green Verditer Flycatcher, the Blue-and-White Flycatcher, and the Robin and Red-breasted Flycatchers are quite eye-catching and endearing to watch as they fly out from a favourite perch to snap at a passing insect.\n\nSimilarly, the great family of warblers is poorly represented by resident species, although many hundreds of migrants pass through or perhaps stay for the winter. The Deep Bay marshes provide nesting cover for the Fantail Warbler, Yellow-bellied and Brown Wren-warblers, whilst the Tailor-bird, with its neatly-sewn leaf house, breeds commonly all over the Colony. Probably no more than one or two pairs of David's Hill-warbler may nest near the top of Tai Mo Shan. Such permanent residents are far outnumbered by the winter visitors, like the Dusky, Pallas's and Yellow-browed Warblers, and the migrants, like the Arctic Warbler and Great Reed-warbler.\n\nOf the smaller thrushes, the Magpie-robin is the only resident, and is common all over the Colony. It is the third of our trio of fine songsters and with its smart pied plumage is an attractive addition to the list. But there are several more chats which are quite common in winter; the Rubythroat, Red-flanked Bluetail, and Daurian Redstart (all described by their names), the Stonechat all over the marshes and paddy-fields, and the Bluethroat on passage near Deep Bay. Among the larger thrushes the Violet Whistling Thrush is the only resident and may be found near most of the watercourses throughout the Colony, from The Peak and Tai Mo Shan down to sea-level. It has a very pretty habit of fanning its tail at rest. Many other thrushes come to the woods of Hong Kong in winter, but are usually shy and difficult to see. The Blackbird is quite common as are the Grey-backed and Grey Thrushes. On the rocky coastline both the Blue and the Red-bellied Rock-thrushes may frequently be seen.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1961.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204854, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 157, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "132\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nAny sailor will raise his eyebrows as Chinnery departs for India by ship18 and arrives in Madras by schooner. All mariners will roar in indignation at the caption \"The American Clipper Ship 'Houqua' off New Bedford\".20 To show a ship-portrait of the whale ship \"Houqua\", a lowly \"pig boat\", and to confuse it with the famous Low clipper ship of the same name,22 reaches bathos indeed.\n\nThis book must be taken with frequent grains of salt. The factual, authoritative biography of Chinnery is still to be written.\n\nPeabody Museum\n\nSalem, Massachusetts, U.S.A.\n\nF. B. L.\n\nUNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG: THE FIRST 50 YEARS, 1911-1961: Edited by Brian Harrison. Hong Kong University Press, 1962. pp. xv+247+vi. HK$35.00.\n\nThe Golden Jubilee of the founding of the University of Hong Kong was the occasion for the publication of this commemorative volume. The book has several purposes: to summarize the history of the University; to recall the names and achievements of the University's most noteworthy benefactors, teachers and graduates; to record the Jubilee Honours extended by the University during 1961; and, in the words of the Governor of Hong Kong, to “stimulate interest and sympathy amongst the people of Hong Kong in whose midst the University stands.” Persons of differing interests and capacities wrote the various chapters, with the result that there is unavoidably some disharmony of organization and subject matter and unevenness of quality. Altogether, however, there is a great deal of valuable material on the aims, organization, activities, trials and tribulations, and achievements of the University, which, while not always easy to follow as one reads through the book, is nevertheless accessible with the assistance of the index. The index helpfully includes characters for all Chinese names.\n\n18 Page 18 ship Gilwell.\n\n19 Page 21 - unnamed schooner.\n\n20 Plate 76 top.\n\n21 Built Boston 1819, converted to whaling New Bedford 1831. lost Arctic Ocean 1851,\n\n22 Built New York 1844 as a 16 gun man-of-war for the Chinese Government. Taken over by A. A. Low & Brother. Foundered 1864,", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204862, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1964", "page_number": 165, "title": "RAS-1964", "content_text": "140\n\nBOOK REVIEWS\n\nbill, a useful bit of information often omitted in bird books. Also included are brief sections on Habits (again often omitted in bird books), Voice (if heard in Hong Kong), Habitat, World Range, and Records for Hong Kong (where, when and how frequently seen).\n\nA lecture given by Major Macfarlane in 1960 to the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society is reproduced. This shows the distinctive features of Hong Kong as seen by the bird watcher, such as its wide range of habitats within a small area and the fact that being on the northern limit of the tropics it is in a zone where northern birds and tropical birds overlap to some extent. It is also on a migration route and in spring or autumn one may see many species on their way to or from their breeding grounds in the Arctic.\n\nThe illustrations in black and white by Commander A. M. Hughes are excellent and there is also a useful map at the end showing most of the places mentioned in the book. It is clearly printed on good paper and will fit easily into the pocket.\n\nAnother very useful feature is a chapter on bird-watching areas by J. L. Cranmer-Byng. It is easy in Hong Kong to walk in the country for some hours and see hardly any birds. One must know where to look and in describing the best areas Mr. Cranmer-Byng makes clear the threat now faced by the ever \"encroaching tide of human activities\" which has already driven many birds out of places where they were abundant in Dr. Herklots' time. It is suggested that eventually Hong Kong will need to establish a Nature Reserve. Surely the need is for a Nature Reserve now. In a few years' time it may not be possible to find a large enough area which would be suitable.\n\nIt has been a pleasure to review this excellent little book on which Miss Benham, her collaborators and her publishers are to be congratulated. If you already know something about birds in another part of the world it will enable you to get to know the rich variety of birds to be found in Hong Kong. If you know little about birds but would like to know more it will almost certainly entangle you irretrievably in an absorbing hobby which will give lifelong pleasure.\n\nA. ST. G. WALTON.\n\nPage 165\n\nPage 166", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1964.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/qz20zx09r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 204970, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 78, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "69\n\nPIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\nA. D. BLUE\n\nFor most of recorded history piracy has been a menace to sea-borne trade, and there have been times when it has been difficult to distinguish between pirates and honest or should one say legitimate traders. Nationality has often been the only mark of distinction, as Spanish and English views of Drake, Hawkins, and the like illustrate.\n\nThe Chinese were pioneers in piracy, as in so many other things, and a history of piracy in China would begin many thousands of years ago. The Chinese were probably skilled practitioners of the art before history began to be recorded. The earliest accounts are in the records of the Chou Dynasty in the fourth century B.C., and piracy continued in China long after it had been suppressed in other parts of the world.\n\nWhen the first Europeans arrived in the China Seas in the sixteenth century, many of the pirates on the coast were Japanese. For three centuries after the defeat of Kublai Khan's invasion of Japan in 1281, Japanese pirates mainly from Kyushu were active along the whole coast, from the Liaotung Peninsula in the north to Hainan Island and the Straits of Malacca in the south. The famous Arctic explorer, John Davis, met his death at their hands in 1604. Davis was serving on an East India Company ship which was anchored off the island of Bintang, east of Singapore, when it was attacked by Japanese pirates.\n\nThis was at the end of the Japanese era, which came about as the result of several different factors. One was the establishment of a strong central government in Japan by Iyeyasu, the first of the Tokugawa Shoguns at the beginning of the seventeenth century; and another was the increasing superiority of Chinese over Japanese junks.\n\nThe depredations of these Japanese pirates often extended far inland, and they were accompanied by atrocities reminiscent of the Japanese Rape of Nanking in 1937. Because of this the Ming Emperors banned all intercourse between the two countries, and this afforded the Portuguese the opportunity to act as", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 205468, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1968", "page_number": 10, "title": "RAS-1968", "content_text": "4\n\nroom for the Society and its library in a large room of the Supreme Court.\n\nDuring the year we suffered the loss of our very efficient Hon. Secretary Miss Michaeliones who was transferred to the British Council at Leeds and also of our Hon. Treasurer Mr. Lanchester of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. We have, however, been fortunate in having as Hon. Secretary Mr. T. H. Thomas of the British Council and as Hon. Treasurer Mr. D. A. Gilkes, a Chartered Accountant on the administrative staff of the Chinese University and we are deeply grateful to them for undertaking a task which occupies so much of their time and labour and those of their staff.\n\nI cannot conclude without expressing again our deep appreciation of the support and assistance given to the Society by the British Council and its staff. The Society's early meetings were held in its library; the Council of the Society holds all its meetings in its office; it has provided us with three successive Hon. Secretaries who with their staff, and in particular the indispensable Mrs. O'Hara, have been a tower of strength on which we have relied from the days when the Hong Kong Branch was re-established in 1959.\n\n8 April, 1968\n\nJ. R. JONES\n\nLectures in 1967 comprised: -\n\n16 January\n\nMajor Michael Banks, R.M.\n\nA Wall of Snow: Exploration and Mountaineering in the Himalayas, Arctic Greenland, Alaska and the Yukon.\n\n13 February\n\nMr. Chuang C. Shen\n\n\"Early Chinese Buddhist Paintings in Tunhuang.\"\n\n6 March\n\nProfessor J. R. Levenson\n\n'A Dialectical View of Confucius.\n\n1 April\n\nVisit to Places of Interest on Hong Kong Island.\n\n3 April\n\nAnnual General Meeting.\n\n17 May\n\nMr. Hugh Gibb\n\nThree films on Angkor and one on \"The People of the Great Lake.\"", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1968.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/66833948d", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 215805, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-2002", "page_number": 104, "title": "RAS-2002", "content_text": "37\n\nforces to the north would tire themselves out trying to link up with the beachhead. Should the Chinese collapse in the face of a Japanese attack, then an Allied campaign to recapture Hong Kong would be jeopardized.\n\nJapan had an incentive to retain Hong Kong. Besides being a part of Japanese-held China, Hong Kong also lay just outside Japan's Inner Zone. This zone included Japan Proper, Korea, Manchuria, North China, Formosa, the Pescadores, the Ryukyus, and the Japanese half of Sakhalin Island. Well before the war, the British had already gained an appreciation that a Hong Kong in Japanese hands would augment the defence of the Inner Zone. Moreover, Hong Kong helped guard Japan's LoC to points west and her oil supplies in the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese could still afford to trade space for time by forfeiting many other parts of their Pacific empire to the Allies, but they were certain to defend their Inner Zone and the positions that anchored their LoC to and from it with the utmost vigour. If the Japanese lost Hong Kong, this would provide hope to people living under Japanese rule elsewhere, while it would send a message to the Japanese people that the war was proceeding unfavourably for them.\n\nBy late 1943, the Allies had gained the upper hand over the Japanese in the Pacific. It was the Allies who could dictate where the next move would fall. As China was still in the game, Allied planners began to take a closer look at the feasibility of a Hong Kong campaign. One opponent the Allies couldn't overcome, however, was Mother Nature, so heed was paid to Hong Kong's weather and how it could affect an Allied campaign there.\n\nA timeless enemy\n\nNature at its cruellest is a phenomenon that humanity's best efforts still cannot match. Even during a high-technology conflict like World War II, the weather proved to be as indomitable a nemesis as it had been throughout the history of war.\n\nWith World War II being fought over a greater expanse of the planet than any other war in history, its participants had to endure extreme variations in the weather, like the freezing cold of the Arctic and the Soviet Union to the sweltering heat of New Guinea, or the oppressive humidity of the South Pacific to the barren aridity of North", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278", "rank": 0 } ]