at least 1,500 feet higher than the small clump from which I procured my specimen, two or three miles north of Punkasari and probably not more than 8,000 feet above the sea.
A little way beyond the actual summit we came on a small open place with a pool of rainwater, which, though anything but sweet, proved to be the only water we could get. We camped there and sent Prestage's shikari to look for some shepherds who were said to be about, and whose dogs we could hear not far away. In the meantime I made the most of the sunshine, and caught all the butterflies I could see; but they were both in variety and number much fewer than on Tonglo, and the only species I took were Zophœssa jalaurida and Lethe maitrya. which were common; two or three Colias and a stray specimen of Pieris Lalage. Not a single blue or skipper was seen, and birds were conspicuous by their absence. On a bare knoll of pasture just above our camp I found a few very pretty plants of a more Alpine character. The large rosy-flowered Pedicularis megalantha was the most beautiful and abundant, but I also found a pretty pink-flowered orchid, Satyrium nepalense, a Lobelia near L. erecta, Halenia elliptica, and a Phlomis with heads of lilac flowers, a small pink geranium, Arisœma Griffithi, and others of lesser beauty.
After a time the shikari returned with two of the shepherds who were near by with about 200 sheep belonging to a man near Parheteng. They told us that the elephants had crossed over the hill five days before our arrival, that they had descended to the eastward without staying, and that they did not know their drinking or feeding places. Prestage was very anxious to kill a wild elephant if he could get one within the Sikkim or Bhutan boundary, but it was not allowable to lull them in British territory. I do not think, however, that in such extremely dense forest it would be at all easy, and it certainly would be dangerous work, as the dense thicket of bamboo would make it impossible to move freely in many parts of the forest. It seems very strange that elephants should ascend to such an elevation as this, but it is their regular habit during the rainy season; Mr. C.B. Clarke told me that when returning from the Yak-la pass in May, he came on the fresh tracks of wild elephants in the snow at an even higher elevation. The number of elephants which frequent the Western Dooars had been diminished by the numerous clearings for tea cultivation and the large immigration; but they are still numerous a little to the eastward, and elephant catching, by means of trained females and nooses, is a regular occupation along the edge of the Dooars. The right of elephant catching is annually farmed out in the district, as in Assam, to the highest bidder, and as the elephants during the rains are often in Bhutan territory, some of the hunters take advantage of having purchased permission from the Bhutan authorities to poach in British territory. My friend Mr. Knyvett, the police officer in charge of the district, had received information that this poaching was going on, and in August, 1886, he took measures to stop it. A letter describing his adventures on this occasion is so interesting that I transcribe it here.
"Our suspicions were aroused last year that the elephants, professedly captured in Bhutan, really belonged to British forests. It was possible,
