Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/874

Rh 834 peculiar to the Himalaya. Two other genera, Helictis, an aberrant badger, and Prionodon, an aberrant civet, are representatives of Malayan types. Amongst the rodents squirrels abound, and the so-called flying squirrels with a membranous expansion or parachute between their fore and hind legs are represented by several species. Eats and mice swarm, both kinds and individuals being numerous, but few present much peculiarity, a bamboo rat (Rhizomys) from the base of the eastern Himalaya being perhaps most worthy of notice. Two or three species of vole (Arvicola) have been detected, and porcupines are common. The elephant is found in the outer forests as far as the Jumna, and the rhinoceros as far as the Sarda ; the spread of both of these animals as far as the Indus and into the plains of India, far beyond their present limits, is authenticated by historical records ; they have probably retreated before the advance of cultivation and fire-arms. Wild pigs are common in the lower ranges, and one peculiar genus of pigmy-hog (Porculia) of very small size inhabits the forests at the base of the mountains in Nepal and Sikim. Deer of several kinds are met with, but do not ascend very high on the hill sides, and belong exclusively to Indian forms. Themusk deer keeps to the greater elevations. The chevrotains of India and the Malay countries are unrepresented. The gaur or wild ox is found at the base of the hills. Three very characteristic ruminants, having some affinities with goats, inhabit the Himalaya ; these are the &quot; serraw,&quot; &quot; goral,&quot; and &quot; tahr,&quot; the last-named ranging to rather high elevations. Lastly, the pangolin or manis is represented by two species in the eastern Himalaya. A dolphin living on the Ganges ascends that river and its affluents to their issue from the mountains. Almost all the orders of birds are well represented, and the marvellous variety of forms found in the eastern Himalaya is only rivalled in Central and South America. Eagles, vultures, and other birds of prey are seen soaring high over the highest of the forest-clad ranges. Owls are numerous, and a small species, Glaucidivm, is conspicuous, breaking the stillness of the night by its monotonous though musical cry of two notes. Several kinds of swifts and nightjars are found, and gorgeously-coloured trogons, bee-eaters, rollers, and beautiful kingfishers and barbets are common. Several large hornbills inhabit the highest trees in the forest. The parrots are restricted to nirrakeets, of which there are several species, and a single small lory. The number of woodpeckers is very great, and the variety of plumage remarkable, and the voice of the cuckow, of which there are numerous species, resounds in the spring as in Europe. It is impossible to do more than indicate some of the chief passerine birds ; their number is immense. Amongst them the sun-birds, resemble in appearance and almost rival in beauty the humming-birds of the New Continent. Creepers, nuthatches, shrikes, and their allied forms, flycatchers and swallows, thrushes, dippers and babblers (about fifty species), bulbuls and orioles, peculiar types of redstart, various sylviads, wrens, tits, crows, jays, and magpies, weaver-birds, avadavats, sparrows, crossbills, and many finches, including the ex quisitely coloured rose-finches, may also be mentioned. The pigeons are represented by several wood-pigeons, doves, and green pigeons. The gallinaceous birds include the peacock, which everywhere adorns the forest bordering on the plains, jungle fowl, and several pheasants ; partridges, of which the chukor may be named as most abundant ; and snow-pheasants and partridges, found only at the greatest elevations. Waders and waterfowl are far less abundant, and those occurring are nearly all migratory forms which visit the peninsula of India, the only important excep tion being two kinds of solitary snipe, and the red-billed curlew. Of the reptiles found in these mountains many are peculiar. Some of the snakes of India are to be seen in the hotter regions, including the python and some of the venomous species, the cobra being found as high up as 8000 or 9000 feet, though not common. Lizards are numerous, and as well as frogs are found at all elevations from the plains to the upper Himalayan valleys, and even extend to Tibet. The fishes found in the rivers of the Himalaya show the same general connexion with the three neighbouring regions, the Palaearctic, the African, and the Malayan. Of the principal families, the Acanthopterygii, which are abundant in the hotter parts of India, hardly enter the mountains, two genera only being found, of which one is the peculiar amphibious genus Opkiocepkalw. None of these fishes are found in Tibet. The Siluridce or scaleless fishes, and the Cyprinidce, or carp and loach, form the bulk of the mountain fish, and the genera and species appear to be organized for a mountain-torrent life, being almost all furnished with suckers to enable them to maintain their positions in the rapid streams which they inhabit. A few Siluridce have been found in Tibet, but the carps constitute the larger part of the species. Many of the Himalaya!! forms are Indian fish which appear to go up to the highei streams to deposit their ova, and the Tibetan species as a rule are confined to the rivers on the table-land or to the streams at the greatest elevations, the characteristics of which are Tibetan rather than Himalayan. The Salmonidce are entirely absent from the waters of the Himalaya proper, of Tibet, and of Turkistan east of the Terektag. On crossing the watershed that leads from the streams flowing into the Indus to those falling into the Oxus, a trout is reported to have been found, though it is said not to live in the Jaxartes or its affluents. No such general or connected account of the Mollusca, insects, or other lower forms of life, of these mountains exists as will admit of anything but very vague statements regarding them. It is, however, understood that the same relations with the neighbouring European, Asiatic, and African regions are found to exist as have been noticed as characterizing the other forms of life. Of the land Mollusca, one-half appear to belong to the genera Helix and Bulimus, and about one-third to the family of Cydostomidce ; the species appear to be for the most part very local, and of about 120 species in all, only about one-tenth are recorded as being found in Tibet or the highest Himalayan valleys. The Himalayan butterflies are very numerous and brilliant, for the most part belonging to groups that extend both into the Malayan and European regions, while African forms also appear. There are large and gorgeous species of Papilio, NymphaUdce, Morpkida&amp;gt;, and Danaidce, and the more favoured localities are described as being only second to South America in the display of. this form of beauty and variety in insect life. Moths, also, of strange forms and of great size are common. The cicada s song resounds among the woods in the autumn ; flights of locusts frequently appear after the summer, and they are met far within the mountains, carried by the prevailing winds even among the glaciers and eternal snows. Ants, bees, and wasps of many species, and flies and gnats in great variety of form, and possessed of equal variety of powers of annoyance, abound, particularly during the summer rainy season, and at all elevations. Apart from the connexion which subsists between the Himalaya and the earliest developments of the Hindu religion, there is little in these mountains that is of interest as throwing light on the earlier history of our race. The mythical geography of the Hindus represents the peak of KaiLis, the snowy mountain north of the Tibetan lake Repttti Fishes Other orders animal king- do Mol lusca. Insect;