128 BOTANY OF INDIA. 



tion."* "Upon this account it has been remarked by Wal- 

 lich, " his statement of the belief of the Gorkhas, that the 

 bikh would protect them from foreign invasion, and his 

 opinion that such a kind of defence might be easily frus- 

 trated, have been fully verified during the late war with Ne- 

 paul. In the Turraye, or low forest-lands which skirt the 

 approach to that country, and among the lower range of 

 hills, especially at a place called Hetounra, quantities of the 

 bruised root were thrown into wells and reservoirs, for the 

 purpose of poisoning our men and cattle ; the attempt, 

 however, was verv soon discovered."! 



It is added by the same author, that the hikh is employed 

 in the northern parts of Hindostan for destroying tigers. 

 Arrows poisoned with that drug are shot from bows fixed 

 near the tracks leading to their watering-places ; and it 

 generally happens that the animal is found dead at the lat- 

 ter. The tuberous roots are imported into the plains, and 

 sold at the rate of a shilling a pound. 



MAGNOLIACE.?:. 



There are few genera in which the species are all so beau- 

 tiful as in Magnolia. The family is a small one, and 

 though its focus, as Professor Lindley has observed, is un- 

 doubtedly North America, where the woods, the swamps, 

 and the sides of the hills abound with them, individuals 

 straggle on the one hand into the West India islands, and 

 on the other into India, through China and Japan. A 

 charming species, named by Wallich Magnolia insigms, 

 was found by him at Sankoo, in the great valley of Nepaul, 

 and on the mountain Sheopur, towards its summit, a spot 

 which appears to be singularly rich in a splendid vegetation, 

 for it was here where also grew the white and rose-coloured 

 varieties of the tree rhododendron, and the Quercus seme- 

 carpifolia, a tree eighty to a hundred feet high, and with a 

 trunk between twenty and thirty feet in circumference. 

 Even Magnolia insignis is a tree of vast size, the trunk 

 being frequently four or five feet in diameter. When in full 

 blossom, it is affirmed by its estimable discoverer to be one 

 of the most magnificent objects ever beheld ; the large, fra- 



* Hamilton's Account of Nepaul. 



t WalUcU's Plantae Asiatics Rariores. 



