640 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XX VII. 



used these insects doubtless occur all along the route but they soon became so 

 abundant that this theory became untenable. The insects gave the snow a sooty 

 appearance and reminded me of snow I have seen about 20 miles from London 

 blackened on the surfaca by a fall of soot. The insects collected in immense 

 numbers in foot-prints in the snow. 



The presence of these insects explained the birds, though as they are between 

 1 and 2 mm. long and rather slender they seem scarcely worth the attention 

 of even small birds. However in the absence of proof to the contrary and with 

 the example of the Greenland whale I am prepared to believe that the birds 

 were feeding on the small insects. Having solved one problem to my own 

 satisfaction I was up against another one, namely what were the insects doing 

 and how do they make a living ? Examination of the insects in the snow is 

 not very easy and I plead this as an excuse for taking them to be beetles. Al- 

 though the legs are very short they can jump well and do so as soon as a lens 

 is brought close to them. If they cannot get away by jumping they change 

 their tactics and burrow down into the snow. When alive they appear to be black, 

 hard and shiny but when dead they are dull and soft and look more like Termites, 

 except for their colour and a cusp which projects like an ovipositor from beneath 

 the abdomen, than any other insect I know. I believe they were feeding on the 

 minute alga which causes 'red snow ' mentioned by Darwin and called Pleuro- 

 coccus nivalis. This name has of course been changed since Darwin's time 

 and the alga is I believe now called GJilaydomonas nevalis. It is however difficult 

 to see with a small pocket lens what an animal of this size is doing, so the eating 

 of the alga is perhaps poor speculation. It, with perhaps other similar minute 

 forms of life, is about all there can be to eat in snow. 



I collected some snow containing a large number of these insects, put it in a 

 tube and dropped it into my pocket and then forgot about it. Two days later 

 I remembered the tube and took it out of my waist-coat pocket where it must 

 have reached somewhere near the body temperature. In spite of this some of 

 the insects were still alive floating on the water in the tube. Still taking them 

 for beetles I poured the contents on a piece of blotting paper and left it to dry. 

 Soon after a Forest Ranger came in to my office and had occasion to take down 

 some notes and selected the blotting paper to blot them with. Examining the 

 blotting paper with a lens to see if anything could be saved from the ruin I 

 was quite surprised to find the insects looking so different to beetles and to iind 

 they had all been crushed beyond recovery. 



Expecting to be up at high elevations again I kept a look out for these in- 

 sects but never fomid any at comparatively low elevations on isolated patches 

 of snow. I expected to get them on my return to headquarters by the Chobia 

 Pass which I crossed on the 10th August. On the Sach Pass the insects were 

 only noticeable on the fresh snow at about 12,000 ft. becoming abmadant a little 

 higher up and on to the top. On the downward jom-ney the snow was conti- 

 nuous for some 10 miles but the insects appeared to occur only near the top. On 

 the Chobia Pass I could find none as there was no fresh snow below 17,500 feet 

 and the top of the pass was only 16,720. I have therefore been unable to renew 

 my acquaintance with these curious insects. Their life-history should be interest- 

 ing and their powers of endurance must be remarkable. The sun on their 

 black bodies at high elevations must heat them considerably when on the sur- 

 face and even when in the snow probably melts the snow round them causing 

 the deceptive shiny appearance. At night they cannot hope for a higher tem- 

 perature than freezing point which they can get by burrowing into the snow. 

 On the surface it freezes hard at night at 14,000 feet even early in June. 



Chamba, 

 2)id October, 1920. R. N. PARKER, i.F.S. 



