assed through grove
after grove of rhododendrons in full blossom. The trees were sometimes
thirty feet in height and the red flowers glowed like clusters of living
coals among their dark green leaves. In the northern part of Yuen-nan the
rhododendrons grow above other timber line on mountains where it is too
high even for spruces.

It rained continually during our stay at Tai-ping-pu. I had another attack
of the Salween malaria and for five or six days could do little work.
Heller, however, made good use of his time and killed a beautiful horned
pheasant, Temmick's tragopan (_Ceriornis temmincki_), besides half a dozen
langurs of the same species as those we had collected on the Nam-ting
River. He also was fortunate in shooting one of the huge flying squirrels
(_Petaurista yunnanensis_) which we had hoped to get at Wei-hsi. He saw the
animal in the upper branches of a dead tree on the first evening we were in
Tai-ping-pu but was not able to get a shot. The next night he watched the
same spot and killed the squirrel with a charge of "fours." It measured
forty-two and one-quarter inches from the nose to the end of the tail and
was a rich mahogany red grizzled with whitish above; the underparts were
cream white. As in all flying squirrels, the four legs were connected by a
sheet of skin called the "patagium" which is continuous with the body. This
acts as a parachute and enables the animal to sail from tree to tree for,
of course, it cannot fly like a bat. As these huge squirrels are strictly
nocturnal, they are not often seen even by the natives. We were told by the
Lutzus on the Mekong River that by building huge fires in the woods they
could attract the animals and shoot them with their crossbows.

A few weeks later we purchased a live flying squirrel from a native and
kept it for several days in the hope that it might become tame. The animal
was exceedingly savage and would grind its teeth angrily and spring at
anyone who approached its basket. It could not be tempted to eat or drink
and, as it was a valuable specimen, we eventually chloroformed it.

Just below our camp in a pretty little valley a half dozen families
of Lisos were living, and we hired the men to hunt for us. They were
good-natured fellows, as all the natives of this tribe seem to be, and
worked well. One day they brought in a fine muntjac buck which had been
killed with their crossbows and poisoned darts. The arrows were about
twelve inches long, made