and genera have ripened their fruit in the upper zone, though they have flowered as late as July; whereas October is the fruiting month at 12,000, and November below 10,000 feet. Dr. Thomson does not consider that the more sunny climate of the loftier elevations sufficiently accounts for this, and adds the stimulus of cold, which must act by checking the vegetative organs and hastening maturation.] I was disappointed at finding the rhododendron seeds still immature at Yeumtong, for I was doubtful whether the same kinds might be met with at the Chola pass, which I had yet to visit; besides which, their tardy maturation threatened to delay me for an indefinite period in the country. _Viburnum_ and _Lonicera,_ however, were ripe and abundant; the fruits of both are considered poisonous in Europe, but here the black berries of a species of the former (called "Nalum") are eatable and agreeable; as are those of a _Gualtheria,_ which are pale blue, and called "Kalumbo." Except these, and the cherry mentioned above, there are no other autumnal fruits above 10,000 feet: brambles, strange as it may appear, do not ascend beyond that elevation in the Sikkim Himalaya, though so abundant below it, both in species and individuals, and though so typical of northern Europe. At Lachoong we found all the yaks that had been grazing till the end of September at the higher elevations, and the Phipun presented our men with one of a gigantic size, and proportionally old and tough. The Lepchas barbarously slaughtered it with arrows, and feasted on the flesh and entrails, singed and fried the skin, and made soup of the bones, leaving nothing but the horns and hoofs. Having a fine day, they prepared some as jerked meat, cutting it into thin strips, which they dried on the rocks. This (called "Schat-chew," dried meat) is a very common and favourite food in Tibet, I found it palatable; but on the other hand, the dried saddles of mutton, of which they boast so much, taste so strongly of tallow, that I found it impossible to swallow a morsel of them.* [Raw dried split fish are abundantly cured (without salt) in Tibet; they are caught in the Yaru and great lakes of Ramchoo, Dobtah, and Yarbru, and are chiefly carp, and allied fish, which attain a large size. It is one of the most remarkable facts in the zoology of Asia, that no trout or salmon inhabits any of the rivers that debouche into the Indian Ocean (the so-called Himalayan trout is a species of carp). This widely distributed natural order of fish (_Salmonidae_) is however, found in the Oxus, and in all the rivers of central Asia that flow north and west, and the _Salmo orientalis,_ M'Clelland ("Calcutta Journ. Nat. Hist." iii., p. 283), was caught by Mr. Griffith (Journals, p. 404) in the Bamean river (north of the Hindo Koosh) which flows into the Oxus, and whose waters are separated by one narrow mountain ridge from those of the feeders of the Indus. The central Himalayan rivers