ENG-1965 — Page 303

NATURAL HISTORY

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to the end of April. A wild lily, Lilium brownii, appears in June with its trumpet flowers up to seven inches in length, white and sometimes purple-streaked. A wild Crinum with long sword-like leaves and bunches of white flowers is found by the sea, and also the Belamcanda, one of the iris family, with red-dotted orange-yellow flowers. The Chinese Bell-flower, Platycodon, is very widely dis- tributed in eastern Asia, being abundant as far north as Manchuria and as far south as Hong Kong. This lovely violet giant harebell is common on grassy slopes on the south side of Hong Kong Island. It is a perennial plant with thick fleshy root stock valued for me- dicinal purposes and was introduced into cultivation in England as far back as the 17th-Century.

In damp ravines may be found the chirita, several begonias, a fragrant-leaved rush, stag's horn mosses, giant aroids, tree-ferns and countless kinds of smaller ferns, including maidenhair and the local Royal ferns. On hillsides, English bracken, a cosmopolitan plant, may be seen growing together with the so-called Hong Kong bracken, a Gleichenia, and a fragrant-leaved myrtle called Baeckea. Plants recorded for the first time in recent years were Gomphrena celosioides and Ambrosia maritima, found in Kowloon, and Andro- graphis paniculata and Cerastium triviale, found on Lantau Island.

The Colonial Herbarium, which provided the foundation for the work of Dunn and Tutcher's Flora of Kwangtung and Hong Kong, has been added to considerably since that book was produced and at present over 29,000 specimens are preserved. Interest in local fauna and flora is fostered by The Hong Kong Natural History Society-founded in 1949 as The Hong Kong Biological Circle— whose aims are to . . . . facilitate and encourage the study of natural history in general and in particular that of the Colony of Hong Kong'. The activities of this society include both indoor meetings and field outings. Another society is the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society, founded in 1957 for the study of local bird life. This society holds approximately 12 field outings each year.

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The Wild Birds and Wild Mammals Protection Ordinance 1954, provides for the conservation of all wild birds and various mammals now rare or in danger of becoming rare. It also prohibits the trapping or poisoning of any bird or mammal, except rodents. Game birds may be shot only in season. There are eight wild life sanctuaries, one of which is the whole of Hong Kong Island. Both game wardens