77$ On the Physical Geography of the Himalaya. [Aug. 



October till April. Geese, ducks and teals swarm in the Tarai, where 

 every occidental type (so to speak, for they are ubiquitous) may be 

 seen from October till April ; and many oriental non-migratory types ; 

 whereas in the mountains the Mergansers i (orientalis) and the Corvo- 

 rants (Sinensis et Pygmaeus) only are found, and that very scantily ; 

 with a few Rails and Galliuules and Sandpipers, from the vast host of 

 the Waders.* 



But I must hasten from these zoological details to make some 

 remarks on the subdivisions of the lower region, a subject which, 

 though in many ways interesting and important, is so little understood 

 that the celebrated Mrs. Somerville in her very recent treatise of phy- 

 sical geography has represented the Tarai as being within not only the 

 Bhaver, but the sandstone range. f 



All observant persons who have proceeded from any part of the 

 plains of India into the Himalaya are sensible of having passed through 

 an intermediate region distinguished by many peculiarities ; and, if 

 their route have lain to the N. W., they can hardly have failed to 

 notice successively the verdant Tarai, so unlike the arid plains of upper 

 India ; the vast primaeval Saul forest, so every way unique ; and the 

 Dhuns or valleys, separated from the last tract by a low range of hills. 

 The natives of the plains have in all ages recognised these several 

 distinct parts of the lower Himalayan region which they have ever been, 

 and are still, wont to frequent periodically, as strangers and foreigners, 

 in order to graze innumerable herds of cows and buffaloes in the Tarai, 

 or to procure the indispensable timber and elephants peculiar to the 

 Bhaver, or to obtain the much-prized drugs and dyes, horns and hides, 

 (Deer and Rhinoceros), rals and dhunas (resin of Saul and of Cheer) 

 and timber of the Dhuns. Nor is there a single tribe of Highlanders 

 between the Cosi and the Sutledge which does not discriminate between 

 the Tarai or Tari, the Jhari or Bhaver, and the Dhuns or Maris. Capt. 

 Herbert has admirably described^ the geological peculiarities and 

 external aspect of each of these well known tracts. His details are, 



* For an ample enumeration of the mammals and birds of the Himalaya, (150 

 gp. of the former, and 650 of the latter,) see separate catalogue printed by order of 

 the Trustees of the British Museum in 1845. The distribution is not there given. 



f Physical Geography, Vol. I. p. 66. 



t J. A. S. No. 126, extra pp. 33 and 133, et seq. 



