312 SNOW-PHEASANTS. 



this neighbourhood were nearly 15 feet in girth. These 

 were the last trees we saw beyond Niti. Before the snow 

 melts off the neighbouring heights, the slopes about Goting 

 are good for several days' burrell-shooting, and there, on a 

 former visit, I got the biggest horned ram of the kind I 

 ever kiUed. As he afforded me a capital day's sport, I 

 shall here devote a page or two to his memory. 



As I had no intention of crossing the pass that season, I 

 reached Niti much earlier in the year. The village then 

 looked tristful and forlorn in its emptiness. The snow still 

 lay in broad patches on the heights close above it, and the 

 burrell were all low down. As we left the village for 

 Goting in the grey of early morning, the only living sound 

 that broke the still frosty air was the wild whistling call of 

 the " heoonwal " (snow-pheasants), as they sat on bare knolls 

 among the gorse-bushes, their long-drawn mournful notes 

 according well with the lonesome scene around. They did 

 not seem very shy, but as they were generally in pairs I 

 refrained from going after them. The track to Goting was 

 often, for long distances, quite buried in snow. In some 

 places where it had just melted off, and the hard steep 

 ground was glazed over with a slippery coating of ice, 

 which had at times to be chipped for foothold, a glance 

 down towards the hidden depth far below sent a cold 

 creepy thrill through the nerves that was anything but 

 pleasant. 



A few miles below Goting we descried across the valley 

 a flock of twelve burrell, and with the glass I could dis- 

 tinguish two grand old rams in it. They were on a small 

 sloping patch of green grass above the precipitous rocks 

 rising directly from the river, having evidently descended 

 to feed there from the heights above, the upper regions of 

 which were covered with snow, and the steep declivities 

 below, where it had only recently melted off, were, for a 

 long way down, still quite destitute of verdure. There was 

 no meaus of crossing the river nearer than Goting, where 



