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A COLLECTION OF THE OPHLDIA FROM 

 THE CHIN HILLS, 



(with Notes on the same by Major F. Wall, I. M.S., C.M.Z.S.) 



BY 



F. E. W. Venning. 



The collection, with the exception of one or two specimens, was 

 made during the latter portion of 1908 and the first few months 

 of 1909 in the neighbourhood of Haka, a small outpost in a remote 

 part of the Chin Hills. This very out-of-the-wayness has its com- 

 pensations from a naturalist's point of view, for it offers him a rich 

 and practically virgin field for his energies and in the case of the 

 Chin Hills one of special interest in that it is placed between two 

 portions of the Empire which are better known to science but are 

 probably very different in physical characters from the Chin Hills. 

 The "Imperial Gazetteer of India'' describes the Chin Hills as " a 

 ' tract of mountainous country inhabited by hill tribes on the N.-W. 

 'border of Burma, lying between 21° 45' and 24° N, and 93° 20' 

 8 and 94° 5' E, with an area of about 8,000 square miles. It forms 

 1 a parallelogram about 150 miles in length N. and S., and varying 

 ' in breadth from 100 to 150 miles.* It is bounded on the North 

 'by Manipur; on the West by portions of the Lushai Hills, and by 

 ' the unadministered Chin area that lies to the North and East of 

 ' the Northern Arakan District ; on the South by unadministered 

 ' country and by the Pakokku Chin Hills ; and on the East it 

 'borders on the Upper Chindwin and Pakokku Districts. The 

 ' tract consists from end to end of a mass of mountains much broken 

 ' and contorted and intersected by deep valleys, and is practically 

 8 devoid of plains and tablelands. Its main ranges run generally 

 'North and South and vary in height from 5,000 to 9,000 feet." 



The whole district forms a portion of the great broken system 

 ( ? systems) of mountains which divides the Brahmaputra or Assam 

 Valley from that of the Irrawadcly and which reaches its highest 

 points on the Burmese side. 



A curious error as the Chin Hills' Gazetteer, I believe, gives a length of 250 

 miles and a breadth of 100 to 150 miles by road. The area does not much, if at all. 

 exceed 50 miles in breadth " as the crow flies." 

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