SPORT IN WESTERN CHINA 187 



Szechuan or in the nondescript regions bordering this province 

 and Thibet proper. I have seen in these regions several Dog 

 Bears in the flesh, and a great number of skins, and all were 

 uniform in appearance. Every person I have met in Western 

 China, having personal knowledge of this bear, considered it 

 as the Himalayan Black Bear. Captain M'Neill, who knows 

 the Himalayan animal well, considered the two bears he shot 

 near Tachienlu as identical with the Himalayan race. Mr. 

 Lydekker's examination of M'Neill's specimen confirms this 

 statement in so far as the specific affinity is concerned. 



The skull of the specimen secured in western Hupeh and 

 referred to above is in the Museum of Comparative Zoology 

 at Harvard College, and agrees exactly with Lydekker's 

 figures of the race macneilli. Mr. A. E. Pratt [Snows of Tibet, 

 p. 233) says that he secured two bear cubs near Tachienlu : 

 " One reached England alive and was sent to the Zoo." It 

 would be interesting to learn what became of this animal. 



The Gho Hsiung is well known locally to natives and 

 foreigners alike as the Common Black Bear of Western China, 

 and it seems scarcely possible that two kinds could be confused 

 under one vernacular name. In the medicine and skin shops 

 of Sui Fu, Chungking, and other large cities in the west, all 

 sorts of curious specimens brought from long distances, and 

 notably from Yunnan, are on sale. There is no reason why the 

 Malay Bruang, or a local race of this animal, should not occur 

 in the warmer parts of southern and south-western Yunnan, 

 and the skulls (hke those of other animals occasionally used by 

 fortune-tellers) find their way into the larger cities of Szechuan, 

 after the manner of other products of those regions. I venture 

 the suggestion that the skulls referred by Mr. Lydekker to a 

 race of the Malay Bruang may possibly have had such an 

 origin, and that the skin of the Bergen specimen is that of the 

 Szechuan race of the Himalayan Black Bear. If the specimens 

 were purchased from Chinese sources such a confusion could 

 very easily arise. Whilst I incline to the belief that the race 

 macneilli represents the only Black Bear found in western 

 Szechuan, it is obvious that more information in the shape of 

 authentic skins and skulls is needed before the point can be 

 finally settled. 



