244 BIRDS: ' SHIARAMA,' OR 



Polygonatum i^oseum, Thermopsis, Podophyllum^ and 

 others. 



Animal life too displayed full activity, especially 

 among the feathered visitants of the forest zone, 

 where the voices of song-birds sounded in concert, 

 completing the general picture of spring. The ex- 

 quisite melody of the thrush, and of its congeners 

 the Pterorhinus Davidii and TrocJialoptcron, the 

 note of the cuckoo, the call of the pheasant, and of 

 a variety of smaller birds, resounded unceasingly for 

 days together. Even at night time, in calm weather, 

 some might be heard too impatient to restrain their 

 songs till daybreak. Indeed everything around 

 gave signs of returning life and activity after the 

 long winter's silence. 



Every day we obtained a number of most in- 

 teresting specimens, and made up for the poor orni- 

 thological collection of the preceding summer when 

 most of the birds were moultinof. 



Amongst the rarer kinds we secured some speci- 

 mens of the long-eared pheasant {Crossoptilon auri- 

 liuu), which we had seen the first year of our travels 

 in the mountains of Ala-shan. This remarkable 

 bird, called by the Tangutans shiaraina, inhabits in 

 largfe numbers the forest-covered mountains of Kan- 

 su, but is never found in the treeless ranges of Nor- 

 thern Tibet. It prefers forests on the sides of rocky 

 mountains, and abounding in underwood, at an abso- 

 lute elevation of 10,000 feet. It feeds exclusively on 

 vegetable matter, and I found nothing but young grass, 

 the buds and leaves of the barberry, and roots of 



