AN EXPLORATION OF NORTHEASTERN KOREA ^ 



By Roy C. Andrews 



PREVIOUS to 1911 but very little zoological work had been done in 

 Korea and that only in easily accessible localities. The few col- 

 lections of birds and mammals which found their way to museums 

 were from the bare, treeless hills of the south and what forms of animal life 

 existed in the dense forests along the Manchurian boundary between the 

 Tumen and Yalu rivers could only be conjectured. This region had never 

 been visited by a white man, for until thirty years ago Korea offered a 



The Museum's expedition leaving Chon Chin, 

 cars^and pushed up tlie railway 



The baggage was piled on three hand 



barred door to the western world and foreigners have found their way but 

 slowly into the remoter corners of the "Hermit Kingdom." 



Except in the most general way, almost as little was known of the 

 geography of this portion of Korea as of its zoology. The sacred Paik-tu- 

 san, the "White-topped Mountain," lying just over the border in Man- 

 churia on a series of wonderful, densely-wooded plateaus, was knoAvn to be 

 the source of the great Yalu River which flows almost across Korea and 

 empties into the Yellow Sea on the east. It had been visited by white men, 

 who came from the north through China as early as 1709; and in 1886 

 three English explorers climbed its pumice-covered slopes and made known 



' Article and pictures copyrighted, 1912. by Koy C. Andr 



259 



