92 ASPECTS OF TROPICAL NATURE 



rocks, wherever they are denuded of snow, the wanderer in 

 Sikkim enjoys the sight of many a gay-coloured flower in regions 

 3000 or 4000 feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc. 



A zone of mosses and lichens does not exist on the Sikkim 

 Himalaya, for they nowhere occur in large quantities, and 

 scarcely ascend beyond the average limits of the Phanerogamous 

 plants. It is only in very favourable stations that they con- 

 siderably transgress these bounds; but this is just as often 

 the case with some of the latter. If, for instance, the Tripe de 

 roche (Gyrophora) of the arctic voyagers, and Lichen geogra- 

 phicus, which under 52° N. lat. and 50° S. lat. grows at the level 

 of the sea, are found in the Himalaya at an elevation of 18,000 

 feet, — if Dr. Hooker was surprised, and no doubt delighted, 

 when, at the Donkiah pass, at a height of 18,460 feet, he dis- 

 covered Lecanora miniata, an old acquaintance of Cockburn 

 Island, in the Antarctic Ocean, — the Delphinium glaciale and 

 other flowering plants attain a similar altitude. 



While thus in Sikkim a wonderful variety of vegetation 

 rises in successive zones from the foot of the mountains to 

 heights unparalleled in any other part of the world, animal 

 life abounds only in its lowest classes ; 

 for the higher orders appear only in 

 few species, and in very scanty numbers. 

 On ascending from the foot of the 

 Himalaya, one is astonished at the 

 silence of the woods, broken at inter- 

 vals only by the voice of a bird, or 

 the chirping of a cicada. The solitude 

 increases on penetrating into the in- 

 terior of Sikkim, and is but rarely Musk -Deer. 

 enlivened by a few monkeys in the 



valleys, some musk-deer on the spare grass of the mountains, in 

 heights of from 8000 to ] 3,000 feet, or a few larks, sparrows, 

 finches, pigeons, swallows, falcons, and other birds, some of which 

 ascend to a surprising height. Thus Dr. Hooker found the 

 Himalaya partridge 16,080 feet above the sea, and crows and 

 ravens at 16,500. The Khaidge pheasants never descend below 

 12,000 feet, and high over the Kintschinghow (22,756) flocks of 

 wild-geese are seen to wing their flight to unknown regions. 



