Old Stuff

Although the island of Hong-Kong has now a population of upwards of 200,000 inhabitants, it is nearly all concentrated in the city of Victoria, which extends for some three miles along the north shore, and about half-a-mile up the slope of the hills, on the summits of which are many fine villa residences and hotels. A few Chinese villages are scattered round the coast, but with these exceptions, the island is almost entirely wild and uncultivated. Some rice used to be grown in the Wong-nei-chong valley, but its cultivation was prohibited as unhealthy, and there are now only a few market-gardens near the city, which derives most of its supplies of fruit and vegetables from Canton. The hills, which attain an elevation of 1,500 to 1,700 feet (Victoria Peak, immediately behind the city, being 1,804 feet high), are generally rather bare in aspect, with a clothing of long grass and brushwood towards the summits, and a larger growth of bushes and small trees in the ravines, every one of which has its stream of beautifully clear and pure water. Some parts of the island, especially on the northern slope, appear to be fairly well wooded, as many thousands of trees, chiefly a kind of fir (Pinus sinensis), have been planted on the hillsides. Along the roads near the city are many fine trees of a species of fig (Ficus retusa) allied to the Indian banyan. The coconut palm maintains a precarious existence, and its fruit does not appear to reach maturity, but most of the tropical and sub-tropical fruits succeed very well.

...Of naturalized species, the "sensitive plant" (Mimosa pudica) a native of Tropical America, grows abundantly in dry waste places; and another shrub from the same region (Lantana camera), which has now firmly established itself in nearly every tropical country, and whose showy red and yellow blossoms are the greatest attraction to ; butterflies of all flowers which I know, has taken possession of large ; spaces near the city, and continues to spread year by year.

....By far the most productive locality for butterflies in the island is the Wong-nei-chong, or "Happy Valley," a spot which is familiar to every one who has visited Hong-Kong....On all sides except the north, where it is open to the harbour, it is shut in by wooded hills, and on its west side are the European cemeteries, the English one in particular being celebrated for the beauty of the gardens attached to it. From these gardens access may be gained to a large extent of well-wooded and productive, but rather steep hillsides; and from the south end of the valley a good road extend for several miles, over a gap in the hills some 700 feet above sea-level, to Cheag-chu, or "Stanley," on the south shore of the island. This sunny valley is the great resort of the butterflies of Hong Kong, and few indeed are the species which have x not at some time or other been taken within its precincts. At Heong- Kong, or "Little Hong-Kong," on the south slope of the island, is a considerable extent of apparently indigenous wood, or rather scrubland, with many large trees, but it was a little too far from Victoria to be often visited by me, and on the few occasions on which I went there, I found no species which did not occur in the "Happy Valley."

From A Preliminary List of the Butterflies of Hong-Kong; based on Observations and Captures made during the Winter and Spring Months of 1892 and 1893. By James J. Walker, in Transactions of the Entomological Society of London 1895, Part I V (December), Chapter XVII.

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