Of butterflies very few were flying at this season, except at the lowest elevations and those mostly Lycœnidæ and Hesperidæ, but a fine specimen of a large silk-producing moth, Saturnia Tibeta, was picked up, with some beautiful day-flying moths, one of which turned out to be new. On the next day, December 30th, we stopped in a good Bhutia house at Lingdam and went up to the monastery where a curious annual festival, which I have never seen elsewhere, was going on. After a service with the usual accompaniments of gongs, horns and cymbals, a procession marched out to some little altars, which were set on fire after arrows had been shot over them, and we were requested to contribute to the effect of the performance by firing a salute from our guns. With the exception of the four Lamas who conducted the ceremony, all the spectators—as I have often noticed during Buddhist ceremonies both in Sikkim and in China— seemed to regard it as an amusing sight. I have never been able to detect any real religious feeling among the common people, though they pay the greatest deference to the priests and are apparently as much under their influence and domination as in Tibet.
On our way back to Darjeeling we made a long march along the same ridge which I had crossed on my way to Pemiongchi four years before. There I found a new species of Curculigo, and what I believe to be Lilium oxypetalum, hitherto only known from the North-West Himalaya, though as it was not in flower I cannot be certain of the species. Among the birds procured were Arboricola rufigularis, a forest-haunting partridge, a lovely little flower-sucker and Myzornis pyrrhura, peculiar to Sikkim. I also shot one of the large yellow-throated martins, Hirundo fuligula, which are not uncommon at 7,000 to 9,000 feet. All this forest is very dense and damp, without any break until it descends to 6,000 feet above Namchi.
On January 3rd we sent our coolies with baggage direct to Darjeeling and made a detour down the Rangit valley to the Tista bridge, which was then being built as a permanent structure with iron cables, passable for ponies. We stayed that night with Mr. Munro at his plantation at Pashok, and he gave me bulbs of a fine lily which I believe to be L. Wallichianum, and of a Pancratium which is abundant in the Sal forest at about 2,500 feet. From here we rode up to Darjeeling, where we found it cold and misty.
After spending a few days at my plantation we concluded our visit to Sikkim by a short trip to Tonglu, where there was now a nice stone-built bungalow for travellers’ use. We found some snow on the road above 8,500 feet on the slopes facing noith. Tonglu is surrounded by a lovely grove of old rhododendrons, among which we measured one of R. ferrugineum, fifteen feet nine inches in girth at two feet from the ground. Birds were fairly numerous, among them a fine wood-pigeon, Alsocomus Hodgsoni, and the long-tailed blue magpie, Urocissa occipitalis, which I had not seen before, and which has a peculiar metallic cry like that of the crow tribe with which it is classified. A sharp frost set in before sunset, but in the sun next day the snow was thawing, whilst it froze in the shade.
After a march of fourteen miles along the ridge we found the ascent of 3,000 feet to the top of Sandakphu very trying. The rarity of the
