Nepal has a wonderful heritage and natural resource in forests and wild life. I have been privileged to experience in these forests the thrill of meeting tigers at close range, of hearing the shama warbling at dawn and admiring the orange beauty of the Flame-of-the-Forest trees.
From time to time, for my personal enjoyments I have jotted down memories in my camp notebook and it is only on the insistence of my hunting friends that I now publish some of them in this book form.
... I belatedly requested Dr. Robert Fleming and his son Dr. R. Fleming, Jr. to correct the scientific and other errors in the book. Had it not been for their valuable assistance, the book would not have been published in its present form. I am grateful to the Flemings for their help. However, the views expressed in the book are entirely my own and I am responsible for all the lapses in the work.
Nepal, lying along the slopes of the mighty Himalaya, stretches from east to west and lies between 80° and 88° East Longitude. Barely a hundred miles wide and stretching from 26° to 36° North Latitude, its altitudes range from a few feet above sea level to the highest point on earth. Nepal is a land of contrast, ranging from the lowland malarious jungles of the tarai to the barren, windswept, majestic peaks of the Greater Himalayan Mountain chain. This tiny Hi-malayan Kingdom is shaped like an elongated rectangle, 800 kilometers (km) long, 160 to 240 km wide, and has a total area of about 141,000 km (square kilometers). Nepal is divided broadly into three regions: the Low-lands, Midlands, and Highlands.
The Lowlands include the tarai, bhabar, Chure hills, duns, and the Mahabharat range up to 915 meters (m) or 3,000 feet (ft). The Midlands cover the Mahabharat Lekh (Range) above 915 m as well as the "Middle Hills" or Pahar zone that extend up to 2,745 m (9,000 ft). The Highlands include all of Nepal over 2,745 m.
However, for ecological reasons it can be put in the following six divisions, bisected in the centre by River Kali Gandaki.
1. The Tarai and Bhabar
2. The Churiya hills (Siwaliks).
3. The Mahabharat.
4,. The Middle Hills.
5. The Main Himalayan Range.
6. The Trans-Himalayan Range
The Lowlands
The tarai comprises the northern extension of the Gangetic Plain and is a narrow belt of well-watered alluvial soils stretching from the Indian border north-ward to the first slopes of the bhabar. The tarai was once heavily forested and contained many large mammals and birds. Today, only a small portion of the original tarai forests remain protected in national parks and reserves. His Majesty's Government (HMG) has established national parks and reserves in Suklaphanta and Bardia in the west, in Chitawan and Parsa in the Central and in Koshi Tappu in the east to preserve the unique forms of Nepali wildlife and plants of the tarai.
The tropical deciduous forests of the tarai are divided into three major types: uniform Sal (Shorea robusta), riverine, and mixed forest. While little extensive forest remains in the tarai, considerable Sal growth exists in the bhabar. The bhabar is a gently sloping, very dry strip of land between the tarai and Chure or Siwalik hills. The water table is low and consists of mostly gravels and boulders.
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