93 CHOONGTAM. Chap. XXI. 



At Choonstam the rice-fields were flooded : and the 

 whole flat was a marsh, covered with tropical grasses and 

 weeds, and alive with insects, while the shrill cries of 

 cicadas, frogs and birds, filled the air. Sand-flies, mos- 

 quitos, cockroaches, and enormous cockchafers,* Mantis, 

 great locusts, grasshoppers, flying-bugs, crickets, ants, 

 spiders, caterpillars, and leeches, were but a few of the 

 pests that swarmed in my tent and made free with my 

 bed. Great lazy butterflies floated through the air; 

 Thecla and Hesperides skipped about, and the great 

 Nymphalida darted around like swallows. The venomous 

 black cobra was common, and we left the path with great 

 caution, as it is a lazy reptile, and lies basking in the 

 sun ; many beautiful and harmless green snakes, four 

 feet long, glided amongst the bushes. My clogs caught 

 a "Rageu,"f a very remarkable animal, half goat and 

 half deer ; the flesh was good and tender, dark-coloured, 

 and lean. 



I remained here till the 15th of August, J arranging my 



* Eucerris Griffithii, a magnificent species. Three very splendid insects of the 

 outer ranges of Sikkim never occurred in the interior : these are a gigantic Curculio 

 (Calandra) a wood-borer ; a species of Goliath-beetle, Cheirotonus Macleaii, and a 

 smaller species of the same rare family, Trigonoplwrus nepalensis; of these the former 

 is very scarce, the latter extremely abundant, flying about at evenings ; both are 

 flower-feeders, eating honey and pollen. In the summer of 1848, the months at 

 Dorjiling were well marked by the swarms of peculiar insects that appeared in incon- 

 ceivable numbers ; thus, April was marked by a great black Passalus, a beetle one- 

 and-a-half inch long, that flies in the face and entangles itself in the hair ; May, by 

 stag-beetles and longicorns ; June, by Coccinella (lady -birds), white moths, and flying- 

 bugs ; July, by a Dryptis? a long-necked carabideous insect ; August, by myriads 

 of earwigs, cockroaches, Goliath-beetles, and cicadas ; September, by spiders. 



f " Ragoah," according to Hodgson : but it is not the Procapra picticaudata 

 of Tibet. 



+ Though 5° further north, and 5,268 feet above the level of Calcutta, the mean 

 temperature at Choongtam this month was only 12° 5 cooler than at Calcutta; 

 forty observations giving 1° Fahr. as equal to 690 feet of elevation ; whereas in 

 May the mean of twenty-seven observations gave 1° Fahr. as equal to 260 feet, 

 the mean difference of temperature being then 25°. The mean maximum of the 

 day was 80°, and was attained at 11 a. m., after which clouds formed, and the 



