May, 1849. NATURAL HISTORY OF LAMTENG. 37 



11,000 feet, the yaks, sheep, and ponies had just been 

 driven 2000 feet up the valley, and the inhabitants were 

 preparing to follow, with their tents and goats, to summer 

 quarters at Tallinn, and Tungu. Many had goitres and 

 rheumatism, for the cure of which they flocked to my tent ; 

 dry-rubbing for the latter, and tincture of iodine for the 

 former, gained me some credit as a doctor : I could, how- 

 ever, procure no food beyond trifling presents of eggs, 

 meal, and more rarely, fowls. 



On arriving, I saw a troop of large monkeys* gambolling 

 in a wood of Abies Brunoniana : this surprised me, as 

 I was not prepared to find so tropical an animal associated 

 with a vegetation typical of a boreal climate. The only other 

 quadrupeds seen here were some small earless rats, and 

 musk-deer ; the young female of which latter sometimes 

 afforded me a dish of excellent venison ; being, though 

 dark-coloured and lean, tender, sweet, and short-fibred. 

 Birds were scarce, with the exception of alpine pigeons 

 [Colimiba leucortotd), red-legged crows {Corvus gracidus, 

 L.), and the horned pheasant {Meleagris iSatyra, L.) In 

 this month insects are scarce, Mater and a black earwig 

 being the most frequent : two species of Serica also flew 

 into my tent, and at night moths, closely resembling 

 European ones, came from the fir-woods. The vegetation 

 in the neighbourhood of Lamteng is European and North 

 American ; that is to say, it unites the boreal and temperate 

 floras of the east and west hemispheres ; presenting also a 

 few features peculiar to Asia. This is a subject of very 

 great importance in physical geography ; as a country 

 combining the botanical characters of several others, affords 

 materials for tracing the direction in which genera and 



* Macaciis Pelopt ? Hodgson. This is a very different species from the tropical 

 kind seen in Nepal, and mentioned at vol. i. p. 278. 



