598 
NATURE 
[Oct. 21, 1886 
grandest forest in Sikkim, and surely one of the grandest 
in the world. A mixture of tropical and temperate forms in 
highest perfection occurs, oaks, chestnuts, magnolias, 
laurels, and many other giant trees, laden with climbers, 
orchids, ferns, aroids, and other epiphytes, till the 
branches break with their weight, mixed with a number 
of beautiful shrubs and herbaceous plants. But this 
forest is almost everywhere, unless strictly protected by 
the forest department, or growing on slopes too steep for 
cultivation, destroyed by fire or axe, for the purpose of 
cropping with rice, millet, Indian corn, and potatoes, 
which are the principal crops of the natives ; and owing to 
the great extension of cultivation, and the immigration of 
Nepalese into Sikkim and British Bhotan, a tract of 
really virgin forest between 3000 and 6000 feet is be- 
coming quite a rarity. 
Partly on account of this destruction of the native trees, 
which are replaced in abandoned cultivation by worthless 
weeds, such as artemisia, and by quick-growing soft- 
wooded trees of no value, the species of butterflies pe- 
culiar to this zone are much fewer in numbers, both of 
species and individuals, than lower down, and some of 
the finer and larger species of Adolea, Limenitis, and 
Athyona, which formerly were not rare in Sikkim collec- 
tions, appear to be now very scarce or extinct in their old 
haunts. A little higher up, however, we find a forest of 
much the same character, though denser, darker, and the 
trees much more overgrown with moss. At 7000 and 
8000 feet rhododendrons appear, and a dense undergrowth 
of hill-bamboo, called “ maling,” which forms the principal 
fodder for ponies in Darjeeling, in some places makes the 
forest quite impenetrable. Here the sun shines but rarely 
during the rainy season, and even in the cold weather 
mist is very prevalent. This forest is the home of 
some of the most sup2rb insects in the world. 
Let us walk up a few miles above Darjeeling into 
the great forest which covers Sinchul on a_ sunny 
morning early in June, and wait on one of the highest 
peaks, where a small bare space can be found. Flying 
over the tops of the trees with a rapid soaring flight 
we shall see that grand insect TZecnopalpus tmpe- 
rtalis, peculiar to these forests, and if lucky enough 
to attract him to the ground by a bait, or able to reach 
his resting-place, we may catch one or two in a morning. 
But his female so rarely flies from ber leafy perch that 
in sixteen years I only know of three or four examples 
having been taken, and these one may say by accident in 
unexpected places. Papilio Krishna and P. Minercus, 
again, frequent the same forest ; but of the former, though 
males are in places abundant, the female is hardly, if 
ever, taken. Herda duma, Picris Horsfieldi, Neptes Zaida, 
and other species, have the same peculiarity, that the 
females are hardly ever seen ; and only long and patient 
waiting in spots where sunshine is of rare occurrence, 
will enable the most sharp-sighted collector to obtain 
them. Some beautiful, though sombre-coloured, Satyride, 
such as Lofhoessa goalpara, Yama, and others, Kaphi- 
cera satricius, Lethe scanda, Dinarba and Stdonis, are 
peculiar to these shady, damp forests, and flit along the 
roads when disturbed in dull weather as well as in sun- 
shine; but however active the search, the number of 
species and of individuals seen in a day will be small 
compared to the results of a day in the tropical valleys. 
Higher up still, from 9000 to 12,000 feet, the outer ranges 
of Sikkim are very poor in diurnal species, though rich 
in Geometra, and Micro-Lepidoptera, as the climate is 
too damp and sunless in summer to encourage the 
appearance of species of Palearctic genera, which are in 
places so abundant on the more sunny, grassy hills of the 
North-West Himalaya. 
In the interior, however, where the climate is drier, and 
where Coniferee and rhododendrons form the principal 
features of the forest from 8000 to 11,000 feet, there are a 
number of European genera and species which I have at 
present only procured through native collectors, but 
which I hope to see for myself before long in life. 
Papilio Machaon, Colias Fieldit, Picris brassica, Vanessas, 
Argynnts Lathonia, the lovely A. gemmata, are common 
in these higher, drier, and more flowery regions, whilst 
Parnasstus, Aneis, Melitea, and other Alpine genera are 
also found in certain places. The moths of the interior 
hills are too little known for me to say much about them, 
but there are great numbers of species of European 
aspect, and many novelties amongst them may be ex- 
pected whenever the Tibetan frontier is crossed. 
H. J. ELWES 
SKETCH OF THE EARLY HISTORY AND 
SUBSEQUENT PROGRESS OF PAL&O- 
BOTANY 
ACR the many memoirs included in the Fifth 
Annual Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, just 
distributed, none evinces more laborious research than 
the sketch of palzeobotany, and no part of this will prove 
more valuable, both from its exhaustive treatment and its 
wealth of references, than the section with the above title. 
The matter divides itself naturally into a history of the 
scientific, and of the pre-scientific period. To the latter of 
course belong the speculations of the early Greek philo- 
sophers, whose ideas were far more correct than those held 
fifteen or sixteen centuries later, for they at least recog- 
nised that petrifactions had once been living things, and 
that the mountains in which sea-shells were embedded 
had once been under the sea. These doctrines were it 
appears the popular belief of the Romans, and continued 
to be held until the spread of Christianity caused them to 
be rejected, and that long period of stagnation to set in, 
when all natural science was weighed down and sub- 
ordinated to the religious cosmogony. 
We do not find, however, any direct and unequivocal 
references to fossil plants or wood in either Greek or 
Latin writers, though such must have been far from un- 
common objects in limestone districts, and the history of 
paleeobotany cannot therefore be said to have commenced 
before the thirteenth century, when Albertus Magnus 
described most unmistakably the occurrence of petrified 
wood.” Little further mention, however, is made of any 
fossil vegetable organism until the latter half of the 
sixteenth century, when we find several writers describing 
and discussing the origin of petrified wood, which seems 
to have added fuel to a controversy that had already for 
centuries been raging concerning the genesis of petrifac- 
tions. Building upon Aristotle’s doctrine of spontaneous 
generation, scholastic writers had come to affirm that 
it was equally possible for stones to grow of any required 
form as for living animals and plants. Avicenna in the 
tenth century had conjured up a ws J/afidifica, and 
Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century had imagined 
a virtus formativa. Bauhin dreamed of some subtle 
Spirit of the Universe, while Libavius opined that fossils 
grew, like living things, from germs or seeds. Balthasar 
Klein obtained a petrified stem, one side being stone, the 
other coal, an object which excited the liveliest curiosity. 
He sent the specimen to Matthiolus, who, after studying 
it, came to the conclusion that coal was a third and final 
step in the process of transmutation, and that just as 
wood turned into stone, so stone in turn became trans- 
formed into coal. Klein’s own views about it seem, 
however, to have been more rational. The discovery in 
the mines of Joachimsthal of a petrified trunk with the 
bark on added to the interest already aroused, and kept 
alive the discussion. 
In 1565, leaf-impressions incrusted in tufa were 
' From the Fifth Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, by Lester F. 
Ward, condensed by J. S. Gardner. 
2 For all references the Fifth Report of the U.S. Geological Survey, 
p. 388 eZ seg., must be consulted. 
