78 
INDIA 
underside almost white with a practically black spot on the anal lobe. 
Here also I took a male Hiposcritia lalage, Doubl., and a native caught 
in his fingers a JDodona eugenes, Bates, an Erycinid, and the same 
man brought me a fine Saturniid moth Loepa newarra, Moore, 
6J inches in expanse, apparently not long dead. 
Meanwhile all trace of cloud had disappeared and when the 
train rounded the last corner our eyes met a sight to take one’s 
breath away. There in grand array stood seven snowy peaks—each 
over 20,000 ft. in height—and overtopping all the mighty three-peaked 
Kangchinjanga himself, full four miles above us and seeming to 
look straight down upon us from the sky, though in reality some 
45 miles away. And this was not all, for we could see down into 
the blue valley at least a mile below the train. A vertical range of 
5 miles! We had the great and unwonted good fortune to see both 
the after-glow of sunset and the fore-glow of sunrise on those majestic 
snowy heights every day of our stay. There was, however, one 
phase as strange as it was beautiful, when the horizon appeared 
to be bounded by a range of lesser mountains, distant perhaps 
30 miles, beyond which there seemed to be unbroken blue sky. 
Where was Kangchinjanga ? Baising the eyes a little its triple peak 
was seen, floating as it were in mid air, like the Island of Laputa! 
The explanation I take to be that 20 or 30 miles of atmosphere is 
enough to make “ blue sky,” just as sometimes on an apparently 
clear day the cliffs of Cap Gris-Nez are not visible from Dover. Erom 
the top of Tiger Hill one morning we saw the conical top of Everest, 
120 miles off, peeping over the intermediate ranges from his com¬ 
manding height of 29,002 ft. (Note the accuracy of the trigono¬ 
metrical survey of India.) Unfortunately we were prevented from 
going to Phallut, and so making a somewhat less distant acquaint¬ 
ance with Everest, because the rest-houses were all in the possession 
of Government agents buying yaks for the Tibetan mission. 
Entomologically speaking, our visit to Darjiling was the saddest 
of disappointments, for it was as cold as England in November, and 
the local entomologists—Messrs. Moller and Lingren—assured me 
that Kallima was hopelessly over, as indeed were most things. 
They, and every one we met, spoke of the astonishing multitudes 
of butterflies in the rainy season; the harder it rained, they said, 
the more insects there were in the short interludes between the 
showers. 
On the high ground I got little ; Vanessa kashmirensis, Pyrameis 
indica and cardui , none of them common, also a brilliantly-coloured 
beetle, a species of Cassida. I saw a school-boy catch Colias fieldii 
