430 SOME TIBETAN ANIMALS. 



China, such as Shansi and Kansu, where they have of late years been 

 collected by Mr. F. W. Styan, an English tea planter. Not that our 

 information with regard to the mammals of eastern Tibet depends 

 by an}^ means solely on the collections made in Kansu and Shansi. 

 On the contrary, the great French missionary ex2:)lorer. Abbe David, 

 succeeded many years ago in penetrating into the heart of the Moupin 

 district of eastern Tibet, whence he brought back a number of mam- 

 mals belonging to types previously unknown to science. Practically 

 all that has resulted from subsequent exploration and collection is to 

 prove the extension of the range of these peculiar types into western 

 China, and to add to them a few species differing only in compara- 

 tiveh^ trivial features. The absence of any distinctly new types in 

 this west Chinese fauna seems to point to the improbability of any 

 striking novelty among the larger types of animal life remaining to 

 be discovered in Tibet. 



Of the strange animals first brought from eastern Tibet by Abbe 



DaA'id, and subsequently obtained 

 by Mr, Styan in western China, by 

 far the most remarkable is the crea- 

 ture now known to naturalists as 

 the great panda {^Fluropus niela- 

 noleucns), although at one time de- 

 nominated the particolored bear 

 c^^'*r«''l;,,.,A^*.-^^---~^~^^s^*^'^ i^b- !)• Ill appearance this ani- 

 Pio.L-Great panda. ^'^1 ^^^ indeed, strangely bear-like, 



although far inferior in bodily size 

 to most membt'rs of the Ci'sidd- the rudimentarj^ tail, plantigrade 

 feet, short ears, and broad head being all ursine features. Moreover, 

 it is not a little remarkable that a species of true bear (Ursus jyruin- 

 osus) inhabiting 'J'ibet not infrexpiently presents a type of coloration 

 approximating to that of the great panda, in Avhich the legs and 

 underparts, together with a band across the shoulders and a ring 

 round each e3'c, are sooty black, while all the rest is pure white. On 

 the other hand, wlien the face of the great i)anda is compared with 

 that of the much smaller and long-tailed arboreal animal inhabiting 

 the eastern Himalaya, and known as the true panda {.EIiu'uh fiil- 

 gens)^ a marked resemblance can be detected, and Avhen careful com- 

 parison between the teeth and skeletons of the two animals is made, it 

 becomes apparent that the great panda is nuich more nearly related 

 to the long-tailed species than it is to the bears. In fact, these two 

 animals appear to be the Old ^\^orld representatives of the raccoons 

 and coatis of America, and thus afford one more instance of the close 

 affinity existing between the faunas of eastern Asia and North Amer- 



