1840.] The Hodesum (improperly called KolehanJ , 705 



tenanted by magnificent species of Prionus and Cerambyx; the 

 rocks contain endless beautiful varieties of Coleoptera; the deep 

 woods, every where during the rainy season brilliant with odorife- 

 rous flowers, are enlivened by Lepidoptera of the gaudiest colors, and 

 numberless varieties of grotesque shapes in the Mantides, Phyllia, and 

 Grilli, infest every thicket ; while tribes of ants, bees, and wasps, attract 

 attention by the beauty and ingenuity of their habitations and nests 

 in the forests. Of the former, one of the commonest species is remark- 

 able for traversing the jungles, and marching along the paths in pro- 

 cession two or three abreast, and of prodigious extent. Scorpions and 

 centipedes are fearfully common; of the former, a species infests caves 

 and fissures in rocks, and attains such an enormous size, that had I 

 not heard the animal described by several people (of different classes), 

 and had reason to be satisfied of the general truth of their assertions, 

 I should have looked upon the whole as a chimsera. In dry, konker- 

 ous soils, the white ants are a scourge. They appear, in woods, to be 

 a kind of vegetable scavengerj reducing to powder the logs which lie 

 on the ground in a short space of time. 



Fish are abundant in every largish stream, retiring in the dry 

 season to the deep pools, which are left when the main channel has 

 run dry ; but the Koles, by poisoning the water, destroy inordinate 

 quantities. The mahseer, and the little fly-taking Cyprinus, miscalled 

 ' trout' in Upper India, are not found in these lower latitudes. Doubt- 

 less these running jungle streams produce many undiscovered va- 

 rieties of fish, but unfortunately, to this branch of natural history I 

 turned no attention during my stay in the country. 



The climate of the Kolehan has been found to be on the whole 

 healthy, although the station of Chyebassa, which was unfortunately 

 selected hurriedly, and without suflicient examination and comparison 

 with surrounding spots, is not a favourable sample, situated on a 

 barren, gravelly plain, interspersed with brushwood, and near piles 

 of bare rocks. The heat during the day is excessive, but the nights are 

 invariably cool, and the air invigorating and exhilerating, in spite of 

 the temperature, owing probably to its peculiar dryness. A mile only 

 to the south-east, at the village of Tambore, the country rises in 

 undulating meadows, beautiful in appearance as an English park, 

 and infinitely cooler than Chyebassa. These advantages in forming the 



