The cross-bow (olo) is still used for shooting birds and monkeys. The stock, made of hard wood, is about twenty-seven inches long, with a groove to keep the arrow in place. When strung the string, which is of twisted tchhütsang bark, catches in a piece of notched bone inserted in the stock near the butt. Underneath is a trigger, which on being pulled tips the string forward and releases it. The bow itself, which is about five feet long and tapered off at the ends, is usually made of bamboo. To be strung the bow has to be held on the ground with the foot with the stock pointing upwards, and the string pulled up to the notch with both hands. An arrow (lotsi) is then placed in the groove. The arrows are merely pointed slips of bamboo about a foot and a half long, with a little bit of “hair-brush palm” (shawo) or bamboo leaf-sheath fixed in a slit at the end as a feather. They are carried in a small bamboo quiver (lotsiphu). The weapon is amazingly effective up to about eighty yards. Poison is never used. In the old days shields (otsung) were always carried in war and are still used at tiger and leopard hunts. Usually they are of strong bamboo twilled pattern matting, but hide shields (tsungkuk) are also used. Sometimes a piece of buffalo skin is simply cut to the right shape and dried in the sun, and sometimes a piece of bear skin is stretched over a bamboo matting foundation. Shields are of two types. Those of the Northern Lhotas are about four and a half feet long and twenty inches broad, with a rounded top and parallel sides. Those of the Southern Lhotas are of about the same length, but have a square top and are only some fourteen inches across at the bottom, broadening out to twenty inches at the top. In battle shields were always carried held well away from the body, for though they were not tough enough to turn a spear thrown directly at them, they would check any spear which pierced them sufficiently to prevent it reaching the body. Stout cane war-helmets (kiven), about six inches high in the crown, are still worn by the Southern Lhotas as a protection for the head at tiger hunts, and also at dances, when they are often ornamented with serow horns. Among the Northern Lhotas only a very few now exist, and these, gorgeously ornamented, are only worn by Puthis and very senior warriors at the dance connected with the building of a new “morung.” They are covered with a coarse cloth made of scarlet dog’s hair, with long strings of the same material hanging down behind. On the covering are sown pairs of boar’s tushes, each pair forming a circle, while two long flat pieces of wild mithan horn, shaved down to the thickness of cardboard, fixed one on each side complete the effect. Character.