atmosphere above 10,000 feet was much more evident than it is in damper and warmer weather; and Godman’s heart was considerably affected by it, so that he had some difficulty in getting up the last part of the ascent. There was a rough house on the top in which we made a large fire, and with plenty of warm clothes we got through the night pretty well, though it was so cold that tea, left in a cup, froze in the room. At sunrise next morning we had the most glorious view of Kanchenjunga as well as of the top of Mount Everest in the far distance, and of Chomolhari to the north-east. I have never seen so striking a view as this in any part of the world, though it is quite impossible to describe or, I should think, to paint. Though the thermometer was below 20°, we found some Bhutia or Limboo shepherds camping out with bare feet just below the bungalow, apparently quite unaffected by the temperature.
On the way back to Darjeeling I shot Trochalopteron affinis, which breeds above 12,000 feet, Tarsiger chrysæus and T. superciliaris. Many nut-crackers, Nucifraga humispila, and jays were seen; and in the dense bamboo thicket at 9,500 feet Xiphirhynchus superciliaris and Conostoma æmodium, which, though not so tame, resembles the Siberian jay in appearance and habits more than any other Himalayan bird. The silver firs, Abies Webbiana, which cover the ridge in many places from 11,000 to about 12,000 feet, seem to be for the most part in a dying condition, and have been much injured by fires near the road. Their appearance is very peculiar, as shown in a photo taken by Mr. C.B. Clarke and produced in plate No. 215, of Trees of Great Britain. On the bare parts of the hill where much aconite grows we found a number of little bamboo muzzles, thrown down by the roadside, which are used by the Nepalese shepherds to prevent their sheep from being poisoned by eating aconite when passing over these places.
At Darjeeling I met a very remarkable man, Lieutenant Harman, R.E., who died soon after from the effects of the severe hardships he underwent in surveying the frontiers of Sikkim. He was so keen to carry on and complete this work that, when he was no longer able to walk on account of frost-bitten feet, he continued his survey in a chair carried on the back of a powerful Bhutia. On the walls of his room I noticed a dilapidated skin of a large slaty-blue-eared pheasant, which I thought must be a new species, and this he was good enough to give me. On my return home I found my surmise correct, and described it under the name of Crossoptilon Harmani in the Ibis, 1881, p. 399, Plate 13. This skin was said by the native surveyor who. brought it in to have come from a point about 150 miles^ east of Lhasa in the valley of the Sanpo river, and remains unique to this day. Though Hodgson long ago procured from a Nepalese envoy to Pekin a specimen of the white-mantled Crossoptilon Tibetanum, which is found near Ta-tsien-lo, my new species is much more nearly allied to Crossoptilon auritum of Pallas, which is found farther north in Kansu and Koko Nor, but differs in having no white on the outer tail feathers. A fourth species, Crossoptilon mantchuricum, is found in North China, but is very rare and local owing to the destruction of forests and the pursuit of man.
From Darjeeling I returned by Calcutta to Ceylon, where I spent a
