24 ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE BOTANY OF 
of travellers, in the cold mountains of Quito and Santa Fé de Bogota. An Euphorbia 
also is found at great elevations, but its great tuberous root sunk in the ground sends up 
long peduncles bearing flowers only in the warmest month of the year. 
Investigations have not yet been sufficiently extended to enable us to detail all the 
instances of identity in species found in this belt with that of the Flora of other 
countries, but the following may be mentioned, in addition to those enumerated, with 
the vegetation of the central belt: Pyrus baccata, Spirea ‘kamtschatica, Fritillaria 
verticillata, Thymus serpyllum, Lamium amplexicaule, Arenaria serpyllifolia. 
Within this belt there is but little cultivation, though Mr. Gerard has seen it as 
high as ten thousand feet, and a village at nine thousand five hundred feet; but there 
the crops are frequently cut green. Capt. Webb saw extensive fields of buckwheat 
and Tartarian barley, between the village and temple of Milem, at the respective 
elevations of eleven thousand four hundred and five and eleven thousand six hundred 
and eighty-two feet above Calcutta; but these, though not beyond the snowy passes, par- 
take more.of the climate and peculiarities of the northern than of the southern face 
of the Himalaya, and in the former, as has been well ascertained, both by the Messrs. 
Gerard and by Captain Herbert, both habitations and cultivation extend to a much 
greater height than on the latter. 
The animal kingdom affords many of the same indications of the Alpine nature of 
the country, as we have seen presented by the vegetable kingdom. The Thibetan musk 
is found on the mountains in the vicinity of the snow. The Antelope ghoral, 
A. thar, and A. Hodgsonii, peculiar to these mountains, are generally found on the 
most inaccessible places in the warm weather; but in the colder, like most other 
animals, they come down to lower elevations for the benefit of a milder climate 
and better pasturage. The Pika does not appear to differ from that found in Siberia 
by Pallas, and like the Arvicola, lays up a winter store, and continues to thrive in a 
climate apparently incompatible with animal existence, being, like others of its 
tribe, so admirably adapted for fulfilling the functions of the: link which they form 
in the animal creation, that of converting vegetable into animal matter, as Dr. Grant 
so beautifully shows in his interesting and most philosophical course of lectures. 
Gypaetos barbatus is found, as in the Alps, soaring above the highest peaks; and 
the Raven, frequently seen in the plains in winter, is here found in the neighbour- 
hood of the snow in the month of May. The different species of Himalayan Pheasant, 
so celebrated for the beauty and splendour of their plumage, Satyra Melanocephala, 
Lophophorus Impeyanus, and Phasianus Waillichii, may, like the Antelopes, be found 
according to the seasons at different elevations, but lower and nearer to the plains, 
according as the weather in the interior becomes more inclement. 
‘Having obtained a general idea of the vegetation at successive elevations in the 
tract of the Himalaya included between the Ganges and Jumna rivers, it remains only 
to show that the observations respecting these will apply generally to similar elevations 
in other parts of the range. Between the vegetation of the mountains of Gurhwal 
and 
