286 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
are thriving. The keeper who has charge of them, Mr. G. 8. 
Black, published in 1880 a very interesting account of their 
doings. This is quoted in full in my work on ‘ Extinct British 
Animals’ (printed the same year), in which will be found a great 
deal more information concerning the British Beaver than it has 
been possible for me to detail on the present occasion. 
NATURAL HISTORY AND SPORT IN THE HIMALAYAS. 
By Suraron-GeneraAL L. C. Stewart, F.Z.S. 
Wir three weeks’ leave of absence, I started from Kussowlie 
at dawn of day, October Ist, en route for the mountains beyond 
Simla, on ornithological pursuits intent. Kussowlie, a pretty 
military cantonment in the N.W. Himalayas, where my regiment 
was stationed, has an elevation of about 7000 feet, and is situated 
on the first range of the Himalayas from the plains, one stage of 
eight miles from Kalka, at the foot of the hills. Simla is about 
thirty-three miles distant N.W. by a good bridle road. 
During the year I had passed at Kussowlie I had been pretty 
busy collecting, and had a tolerably good assortment of hill-birds, 
chiefly, however, the summer residents and denizens of the lower 
ranges; and I was anxious to collect in the higher mountains, and 
particularly in the pine-forests beyond Simla. In these days I 
was in constant correspondence with Blyth, in Calcutta, who at 
my request had sent me a good birdstuffer in the shape of a young 
Portuguese of his own training. Gomez was his name, idleness 
and lying his nature; but he was excellent in his own department 
of skinning birds, &c., and preparing skeletons. I had as a com- 
panion for the trip Capt. T., of a native infantry regiment then on 
leave at Kussowlie, a good shot, and devoted to Ornithology; and 
it was arranged that he should join me a stage or two beyond 
Simla. As there were staging or “ Dawk” bungalows all the way 
to Koteghur, which, as far as we knew, was to be our ultimatum, 
we did not encumber ourselves with tents or superfluous baggage. 
We took most of our supplies from Kussowlie and there engaged 
our hill porters, sending them on ahead under a trustworthy 
servant of T.’s. Mr. Gomez accompanied the party, bestriding 
a screaming and fractious bazaar pony, and they were to await my 
