RESULTS OF THE EXPEDITION. 
163 
putrefaction, unmolested by bird or beast, until devoured by 
some famished baud of traders, or until they crumble into 
dust. When a camp is moving the attendant Ravens of 
course may help themselves, but these wise birds are far too 
" canny to take up their quarters in such uninhabitable 
regions, and only visit them in company with men who will 
afford them the luxury of a stolen meal. I have a shrewd 
suspicion that to the Raven, as to some of the higher 
members of the animal kingdom, stolen things are ever 
sweetest. 
One of the points which the observations of Dr. Henderson 
has most impressed me with, is the great altitudes at which 
many species of birds seem perfectly at their ease. Our 
familiar friend the Cuckoo was seen swinging in the breeze 
on the pendant branches of a birch, trolling his "jocund 
lay^-* at a height of 11,000 feet, while the snow lay all around. 
The Hoopoe was quite at home at 18,000 feet, the so-called 
Kashmir Dipper, a resident at over 15,000 feet, busy seeking 
insects in a stream more than half of which was congealed 
into solid ice; Guldenstadt's Redstart was hopping uncon- 
cerned on the snow at 17,800 feet ; Montifringilla hcemato- 
pygia seems to live permanently at heights of from 17,000 
to 14,000 feet, below which Adams's Finch is common at 
13,000 feet. The Long-billed Horned Lark ranges in all 
suitable localities from 12,000 to 15,000 feet, while both 
the Mongolian Dottrel and the Ruddy Shieldrake breed at 
16,000 feet, and the brown-headed Gull {X. brunneicephala) 
at 15,000 feet. I do not know whether it has ever been 
observed how sharply the first high snowy range of the 
Himalayas defines the area of distribution of a large pro- 
portion of the species resident within those hills. Numbers 
of species occur south of the first snowy range, from 
Murree to Darjeeling, which, except where some large river 
breaking through the range enables them to creep a short 
distance up its valley, are never found north of that line. 
Numbers again abound throughout the midland Himalayas 
which are never found south of that range, although appa- 
rently localities precisely similar to those in which they 
reside are there to be met with. 
M 2 
