marked as this isolated race in the mountains of Southern India, whilst on the other hand the C. Fieldii of Khasia is absolutely indistinguishable from the Himalayan insect.
Another walk in the neighbourhood of the farm was to the so-called Elephant Falls, in a pretty gorge about a mile from the bungalow where a stream, which after heavy rains is of fair size, falls over rocks into a deep dark pool, overhung by steep banks covered with pines and a common form of evergreen oak (Quercus Griffithi). In some marshy ground below these falls there grew in abundance two species of Grass of Parnassus, a genus which reminds one of similar spots in the Highlands. One of them, Parnassia Wightiana, is a lovely plant with large white fringed petals. I gathered the seeds and sent them to Kew, for the cool orchid house there. In this neighbourhood, as everywhere on the plateau of the Khasias, one remarks groups of upright stones, sometimes of very large size, arranged in a line of five or seven or more, with the tallest in the centre, and smaller ones on each side, and having one or two large altar¬ like stone tables in front of them. These monuments, which have been described at length by Mr. Clarke, were not, according to his views, for sacrificial purposes, bur simply family monuments erected to the memory of deceased persons. Some of them are of great size, as much as thirty feet in height, but the majority of them are from six to ten feet, and they are found scattered about the country, remote from habitations, as well as in the vicinity of villages. At Nurtiung in the Jaintia hills there is a remarkable collection of them, forming a veritable Stonehenge, but as far as I have seen, they bear no inscriptions and therefore give no clue to the history of their erection.
I spent three or four days in collecting near the Shillong Peak, and constantly discovered plants new to me, some of which were very striking, but my collection of butterflies increased but slowly, and not having received "my gun and baggage from Gowhatty, I had no means of identify¬ ing the few birds I saw. On September 7th, I returned with Clarke to Shillong, and the next day visited what are called the Bishops’ Falls, which are in a deep gorge about three miles from the station. They consist of one fall of about 200 feet, which, though the body of water is not large, is very pretty, and of a lesser fall below it. Below the junction of the two streams which unite here and form the Umiang river, there seems to be a larger and finer fall, but owing to the precipitous nature of the rocks and the dense jungle which grows on the bottom of the gorge, this part of it seems inaccessible. The heat when the sun came out was considerable, and the vegetation much more tropical than on the plateau 1,000 feet above. The ravine was full of immense, smooth and apparently water-worn blocks of conglomerate, piled together and overgrown with long coarse grass and bushes. Of butterflies I saw several species of Hesperidæ and a few large day-flying moths of the genus Euschema, and a fine large blue and black Adolias which I could not catch. The most striking plant was an immense red-flowered Hedychium* which does not seem to have been described, and a species of Codonopsis, a blue-flowered
1 This was described by Elwes as H. Elwesi and was introduced later. It is closely
allied to, not identical with, H. Greeni (Botanical Magazine).
