ENG-1964 — Page 288

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NATURAL HISTORY

major fisheries on their seasonal breeding or feeding migrations. In the summer months during recent years large sharks and manta rays have been particularly abundant and have on occasion caused both welcome and unwelcome excitement among fishermen, swim- mers and yachtsmen. Infrequent incursions of oceanic water from the south bring with them during the summer such varieties as flying fish and the beautiful but deadly Portuguese Man O' War, with its striking purple and red float and long stinging tentacles. Occasional individual rarities turn up. In August fishermen at Tai Tam found a twelve feet long sailfish stranded in shallow waters. The fish had a broken spear and appeared to be dying from starva- tion. The invertebrate fauna of the Colony are as diverse in form and colour as the fish. Hidden from sight to all except divers is a profusion of corals, sea-fans, sea-lilies and many other beautiful marine animals.

FLORA

It is not possible to make any distinction between the trees of Hong Kong and those of neighbouring southern China. The prin- cipal trees in the Colony are pine, Chinese banyan and camphor. A large number of others have been added since the area came under British administration, the most common being casuarina, eucalyptus and flamboyant. The traditional Chinese belief that the disposition of buildings, graves, trees, water and mountains may affect a person's fortune and destiny has done much to preserve fine groves of trees, mostly camphor, banyans and clumps of bamboo around many farms and villages in the New Territories. Some of the mountain slopes, from a distance, seem bare of any plant covering except grass, but on closer observation it can be seen that the water courses are marked by narrow bands of low shrubby growth and scattered trees.

The principal locally-grown fruits include lychee, lung ngan, wong pei, loquat, pomelo, tangerine, banana, papaya, pineapple, custard apple, guava and Chinese varieties of plum and pear. The Portuguese originally introduced the papaya, the pineapple, the custard apple and the guava from South America some time after the foundation of Macau. The tangerine on the other hand is a native of South China which was introduced to the west in the seventeenth century when the Portuguese transplanted it to Tangier, then under their control.