MOTHS 41 



which is a deep violet-blue with a conspicuous yel- 

 lowish bar across the fore-wing, is exposed, and 

 the butterfly is then most beautiful. I have seen 

 many of these lovely butterflies flying about in the 

 Teesta Valley, glistening in the dappled light of the 

 forest, and then settle on a branch; and unless I 

 had actually seen them alight, I should never have 

 known them from leaves. 



The moths, though naturally not as beautiful as 

 the butterflies, are far more numerous, there being 

 something like two thousand species. Several of 

 them are the largest of the insect race. And one 

 of them, the famous atlas moth, is sometimes nearly 

 a foot across. Next in size come several species of 

 the genus Actias, of which selene is the most com- 

 mon. It is of a pale green colour with a pinkish; 

 spot, and has long slender tails. It measures about 

 8 inches across the fore- wings, and nearly as much 

 from shoulder to the tip of the tail. 



Other insects numerously represented in Sikkim 

 are beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, praying insects, 

 walking-stick insects, dragon-flies, ants, lantern- 

 flies, cicadse, etc. 



Plant life and insect life are abundant enough, 

 but of birds there seem to be comparatively few. 

 As we travel through the forest we do not notice 

 many of them, and we do not hear many. We do 

 not everywhere find great flocks of birds as we see 

 swarms of insects. And we do not find the forest 

 resounding with the songs of birds as it does with 



