TRAVELS IN CEYLON AND CONTINENTAL INDIA; INCLUDING NEPAL AND OTHER PARTS OF THE HIMALAYAS, ADDRESSED TO BARON VON HUMBOLDT, ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF CONIFERÆ ON THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. IL ON THE VEGETATION OF THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. III. THE BIRDS OF THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. BY DR W. HOFFMEISTER, TRAVELLING PHYSICIAN TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE WALDEMAR OF PRUSSIA. Translated from the German. EDINBURGH: WILLIAM P. KENNEDY, ST ANDREW STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. MDCCCXLVIII. PREFACE. THE following Letters and descriptive sketches are the legacy of a traveller in the distant lands of the East;-one who may be said to have reached the summit of that peculiar happiness attainable by those only who are of enthusiastic temperament, and inquisitive in the pursuit of natural science. Ever true to the duties of his own calling,—still, even in war, beside that Prince whom he had accompanied as medical attendant through all the dangers of a most arduous journey, as far as the banks of the Sutlej in the territory of the Sikhs,-himself a lover of peace, he was snatched away by a violent death on a battle-field. The fragments now presented to the public, must be considered as the relics of a mind, imbued with the living freshness of youth, cultivated by a scientific education, full of susceptibility to impression in a world |