COLLECTING WAYS AND COLLECTING DAYS. 477 



into view, and then, with a cnrious grating call like " quai-tch" — 

 " quai-tch-tch," three or four others followed. It was Gypsophila 

 crispifrons. To snatch my gun up from where the old guide had laid 

 it down and to fire both barrels (it was luckily already loaded with 

 half charges of No. 10 shot) was the work of a second as the saying is. 

 When the smoke cleared I found one poor bird nearly blown to pieces, 

 and a short search produced another, which was luckily much less 

 knocked about and made a very good specimen afterwards. 



Being on my legs now, I looked around. On the plain the sun's 

 rays were fast clearing off the mist. From where I stood I could not 

 see the marsh, but to the right on the other side of a broad belt of 

 forest gleaming under the morning sun, the narrow stream of the Ataran 

 curled and twined out of sight behind another lofty limestone ridge 

 near the village of Nidong. To the left over the marsh which was 

 hidden by intervening pinnacles of rock, and beyond a bare expanse of 

 buffalo grazing ground and paddy fields, the white cupola of a pagoda 

 and a grove of mighty palm trees (Borassus flabelliformis) marked the 

 village of Kyaikmyaw, the most important village in these parts. 



" Wheu-u-u" — a low whistle — and I turn and see my Karen crouch- 

 ing close to the ground, and I also see the back of a largish animal 

 scuttling off among the rocks and going h — ahem ! — for leather. It 

 was a tl tawseik." I caught one good view of it as it got to the top 

 of the next ridge, but too far off to shoot at with a smooth-bore. It 

 seemed to be of a reddish-brown colour and rather clumsy in make, 

 and in the mist which still hung thinly about the hill it loomed as 

 large as a good-sized donkey. 



Going on towards the foot of the next ridge, I caught flitting about 

 close to the ground a number of Ypthima huebneri, Mycalesis mineusy 

 and M. runeka, with one Lethe rohria and one Ragadia crisilda, a 

 pretty delicate black and white butterfly. It is strange that, though the 

 vegetation is so different on these limestone hills from what it is on 

 the plains below, the insects do not seem to differ. I could not recog- 

 nize one single shrub or plant that I knew as occurring below, except 

 perhaps the cycads and an orchid or two ; yet none of the butterflies 

 or other insects that I caught that day, or have procured since 

 on these hills, differs one jot from their brethren of the plains, not even 

 in so much as would make a distinguishable variety. 



Half way up the second ridge, the climb whereof was not quite so 

 stiff as that of the one we had just done, my guide stopped and pointed 



