February 1855 Hong Kong, China spend the winter in this part of China. I was employed for some days in packing speci- mens in boxes and kept for transmission to the United States. There, by the Commodores Order were divided into two equal parts, and left in Mr De Silver's Charge to be sent at two different times or by two different ships. Duplicates were in many cases placed in both sets of pack- ages, and by this method there would be a chance of saving some examples of most of the species. I also selected from my stores in the Naval Storehouse such portion of the bottles, chemicals etc as I shall need in the coming cruise, leaving the remainder to be made use of on our return to this Port, which is probable. Mr Munroe resigned & went to Europe The Carter, our Master, was taken dangerously sick of dysentery, and was taken ashore to the house of an American Missionary, where after a month's suffering he slowly recovered. He will go home by way of San Francisco. While at this Port we enjoyed fine, though often hot weather. Indeed it is much warmer here in February than in the latter part of March and in April. I visited the Observatory about noon nearly every day to look after Selkey's look, or as a starting point for excursions after land shells etc. I enjoyed these visits very much, my stopping place being usu- ally Mr Kern's Rooms. On one occasion I made an excursion to the top of the central ridge of the island, a hard climb in hot weather, although I had a path for nearly the whole distance. At different points I branched off from the path into thickets and wooded slopes, to make collections of shells, Myriapoda, etc. I started a small red deer, of the size of an Antelope, which jumped up quite close to me, ran down into a ravine, and part way up its off- sets side, when it stopped and I had a good view of it. The "Hancock" and "Cooper" arrived during the latter part of the month. They had been engaged in surveys on the Northeast coast of China, chiefly in the Gulf of Pe-cher-len and about the mouth of the Pei-ho river, at which latter place they had been engaged, in assisting the American and British Com- missioners in their diplomatic operations and communication with the Chinese Govern- ment of Pekin.