proceeding, the track being obliterated by the rains, torrents, and
landslips. Along the flats, now covered with a dense rank vegetation,
we waded ankle, and often knee, deep in mud, swarming with leeches;
and instead of descending into the valley of the now too swollen
Lachen, we made long detours, rounding spurs by canes and bamboos
suspended from trees.

At Choongtam the rice-fields were flooded: and the whole flat was a
marsh, covered with tropical grasses and weeds, and alive with
insects, while the shrill cries of cicadas, frogs and birds, filled
the air. Sand-flies, mosquitos, cockroaches, and enormous
cockchafers,* [_Eucerris Griffithii,_ a magnificent species.
Three very splendid insects of the outer ranges of Sikkim never
occurred in the interior: these are a gigantic Curculio (_Calandra_)
a wood-borer; a species of Goliath-beetle, _Cheirotonus Macleaii,_
and a smaller species of the same rare family, _Trigonophorus
nepalensis_; of these the former is very scarce, the latter extremely
abundant, flying about at evenings; both are flower-feeders, eating
honey and pollen. In the summer of 1848, the months at Dorjiling were
well marked by the swarms of peculiar insects that appeared in
inconceivable numbers; thus, April was marked by a great black
_Passalus,_ a beetle one-and-a-half inch long, that flies in the face
and entangles itself in the hair; May, by stag-beetles and
longicorns; June, by _Coccinella_ (lady-birds), white moths, and
flying-bugs; July, by a _Dryptis?_ a long-necked carabideous insect;
August, by myriads of earwigs, cockroaches, Goliath-beetles, and
cicadas; September, by spiders.] _Mantis,_ great locusts,
grasshoppers, flying-bugs, crickets, ants, spiders, caterpillars, and
leeches, were but a few of the pests that swarmed in my tent and made
free with my bed. Great lazy butterflies floated through the air;