done so much to help the planters by his investigations on rubber and other tropical products.
Another place which no one should miss seeing at Singapore is the Raffles Museum, where there is a fine and well kept series of Malayan birds, mammals and ethnological collections of great interest, with a library where facilities are given to the public to study.
The fish market is also one of the largest and most curious in the world, owing to the immense number of different fish which are found there. The Malays, like the Chinese, are great fishermen and fish eaters, and I believe that a daily visit to this market would give unrivalled oppor¬ tunities for collecting fish to anyone who was interested. I went round with a Malay connoisseur who selected for me a few of the best for the table, and had them cooked at the hotel, as the native delicacies are neglected in favour of imitations of European dishes. Bamboo shoots, cut just as they come above ground, and stewed in slices, are one of the best vegetables I ever ate, and Malay cooks are, like Chinese and Indians, very clever in preparing a number of excellent dishes and condi¬ ments to eat with rice, fish and sago, which form the principal elements of their food.
As I received a telegram from Dr. Shirasawa to say that he would not be able to arrive in Formosa before the first week in February, we decided to pay a short visit to Java, an island which I had long wished to visit. We arrived at Batavia after a hot but not unpleasant passage on January 8th, and went up to Buitenzorg as soon as possible, where we found excellent accommodation in a hotel close to the celebrated Botanic Gardens. No other country has maintained so large, well-equipped, and favourably situated gardens as these, which arc the resort of botanists of all countries, and we found Dr. Kenigsberger most obliging in showing us as much as possible. Buitenzorg, though only 800 feet above the sea-level, is cooler than Calcutta or Singapore and is not subject to a hot, dry season, or to the cyclones which sometimes do so much harm at Calcutta. The soil is rich and many trees which are not natives of Malaya grow very well here. Araucarias grow to a large size, A. Cookii being about 100 feet high, but do not look so healthy as in Portugal. Cypressus funebris and Juniperus excelsa are able to exist and attain from 30 to 40 feet in height, though the climate is evidently too hot for them.
Dammara alba is the finest conifer, 130 feet high, with bark scaling off in the same way as that of a Plane tree, Casuarina Rumphii attains 130 feet by 8 feet.
Pinus Merkusi, from Sumatra, was 77 feet by 5 feet, and had orchids growing on its branches.
A tree named Pinus Montezumæ, which, however, I was unable to verify, was no less than 105 feet by 5 feet.
Dipterocarpus retusus was the tallest tree I saw and measured 140 feet high, with a whitish bark and very curious lobed fruits. There was a fair specimen of Lodoicea, the double cocoanut of the Seychelles Islands, whose fruit was produced by fertilising the female plant with pollen sent from Ceylon. On a second visit to the gardens I spent the time mainly in the economic division, where all kinds and varieties of tropical
