May, 1849. RHODODENDRONS. PINES. SNAKES. 25 



wholly absent from the damper ranges of Dorjiling, or found 

 there several thousand feet higher up. On the hill above 

 Choongtam village, I gathered, at 5000 to 6000 feet, 

 Rhododendron arboreum and Dalhousice, which do not 

 generally grow at Dorjiling below 7,500 feet.* The 

 yew appears at 7000 feet, whilst, on the outer ranges 

 (as on Tonglo), it is only found at 9,500 to 10,000 

 feet ; and whereas on Tonglo it forms an immense tall 

 tree, with long sparse branches and slender drooping 

 twigs, growing amongst gigantic magnolias and oaks, at 

 Choongtam it is small and rigid, and much resembling in 

 appearance our churchyard yew.f At 8000 feet the Abies 

 Brunoniana is found ; a tree quite unknown further south ; 

 but neither the larch nor the Abies Smithiana (Khutrow) 

 accompanied it, they being confined to still more northern 

 regions. 



I have seldom had occasion to allude to snakes, which 

 are rare and shy in most parts of the Himalaya ; I, how- 

 ever, found an extremely venomous one at Choongtam ; 

 a small black viper, a variety of the cobra di capello,| 



* I collected here ten kinds of rhododendron, which, however, are not the 

 social plants that they become at greater elevations. Still, in the delicacy and beauty 

 of their flowers, four of them, perhaps, excel any others ; they are, R. Auchlandii, 

 whose flowers are five inches and a half in diameter ; R. Maddeni, R. Dalhousice, 

 and R. Edgeworthii, all white-flowered bushes, of which the two first rise to the 

 height of small trees. 



+ The yew spreads east from Kashmir to the Assam Himalaya and the Khasia 

 mountains ; and the Japan, Philippine Island, Mexican, and other North American 

 yews, belong to the lame widely-diffused species. In the Khasia (its most southern 

 limit) it is found as low as 5000 feet above the sea-level. 



X Dr. Gray, to whom I am indebted for the following information, assures me 

 that this reptile is not specifically distinct from the common Cobra of India ; 

 though all the mountain specimens of it which he has examined retain the same 

 small size and dark colour. Of the other Sikkim reptiles which I procured, seven 

 are Colubridce and innocuous ; five Crotalidce are venomous, three of which are 

 new species belonging to the genera Parias and Trimesurus. Lizards are not 

 abundant, but I found at Choongtam a highly curious one, Plestiodon Sik- 

 kimensis, Gray ; a kind of Skink, whose only allies are two North American 

 congeners; and a species of Acjama (a chameleon-like lizard) which in many 



