ABORS AND GALONGS. 19 



near Pasighat, and Mr. W. C. Morris, whose knowledge of elephants on this frontier is 

 considerable, told me that a few elephants at Sibyamukh and a herd up the Sisseri are 

 the only elephants he has found, or traces he has discovered, in the plains between 

 the Subansiri and the Dibang. 



The other notable feature is the interesting series of squirrels that are found in the 

 country. As a report dealing with the ethnography and zoology of the Abor country 

 has been written by an authority on these matters, it is enough, in this unscientific 

 account of the fauna, to say that monkeys (including the langur), tiger, bear, leopard, 

 sambhur and barking deer, pig, serow, otters, squirrels, rats and bats are to be found 

 either in the foot-hills or further to the North ; along the snowy range south of Tibet 

 takin are to be met with at about 10,000 ft. in June. 



The birds associated with the Eastern Himalayas are well represented, and of the 

 larger birds, hawks, greater and lesser hornbills, jungle fowl, khalij pheasants and hill 

 partridges are seen. Dr. Falkiner tells me that there is a similarity between the 

 birds of the Abor country and the Malay Straits that has not been observed in India. 

 Snakes and land Crustacea are not at all uncommon ; fish swarm in the rivers l and 

 prawns in the streams. The coleoptera and lepidoptera that are to be found during the 

 rains would well repay any entomologist spending a summer in the country. Leeches 

 abound along the foot-hills and in some of the gorges and valleys " dam-dim" flies 

 are painfully common. Ticks might also, with advantage to the traveller, be less 

 strongly represented. 



The great differences in altitudes and consequently in climatic conditions that 

 exist through the hills create a wonderful variety in the flora. Generally speaking the 

 vegetation south of the 29th parallel is evergreen sub-tropical forest. 2 But the types 

 of vegetation range upwards from the dark luxuriant tree and bush jungle, choked with 

 parasitic creepers and filled with cane brake, of the valleys along the southern slopes ; 

 through the more spacious forest where the undergrowth is lighter and the trees, 

 simal, nahor and holok mingle with the oak and chestnut and where the screw pine 

 becomes a prominent feature we reach the vegetation associated with the higher 

 altitudes. Here the ordinary bamboo is replaced by a remarkably thin variety that 

 grows in thick low clumps, dwarf rhododendrons cast anchor in the rifted rock, and 



1 Mahseer were caught in June at the mouth of the Sipong, but in these higher reaches boka predominated. 



2 The vegetation on Dino (10,300 ft.) just south of 29°, in the Angong Abor country was found to range in the 

 following zones. Up to 4000 feet the trees were choked by parasitic creepers and thick luxuriant undergrowth. 

 Above this altitude the thick undergrowth was replaced by thin bamboos in clumps and low bushes of flowering shrubs. 

 Above 6000 feet the stony crystalline outcrop was covered with ferns and the path ran thro' a belt of tall azaleas, into 

 the rhododendron zone. The first cypresses were seen at 8400 feet. At 9000 feet a bush of holly was noticed. The 

 summit was a narrow ridge of limestone covered with heath dotted here and there with dwarf azalea and rhododen- 

 dron, with an occasional stunted cypress. The hill was visited at the end of May and snow still lay in the corries. 

 There was no other water supply above 9000 feet and this would account for the absence of game large or small. The 

 azaleas were magnificent — a wealth of fragrant white flowers six inches in diameter. The rhododendrons were also 

 out. blossoming pink in the lower altitudes, and yellow, red and purple higher up the hill. A tree with leaves like those 

 of the ' ' Elephant Apple ' ' tree was in flower at 8000 feet j it had blossoms like large white Canterbury bells. The 

 heath on the summit bad a small yellow flower. Visiting the Mishmi Hills at the end of March (1914) white tall azaleas 

 and pink tall rhododendrons were found in full bloom between 6000 and 7000 feet, lat. 28°2o' long. 95°4o'. 



