352 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1923 



mountains. Mighty rivers traverse the land from end to end, cutting 

 through mountain ranges to form deep gorges, or widening their 

 beds to form great valleys. In the north a temperate climate pre- 

 vails, a warm summer being followed by a bitterly cold winter, while 

 in the south tropical conditions are met with. The climate of the 

 north may be characterized as dry, that of central China as humid, 

 that of the southwest as distinctly wet. The result of all this is the 

 presence of an extremely varied fauna, not only in regard to the 

 species and genera of the families and orders represented, but in 

 those families and orders themselves. 



Another factor which helps to bring about this wonderful variety 

 in the fauna of China is the age of the country. It is customary, 

 when discussing the Chinese, to credit them with a very ancient 

 civilization, but geologists tell us that the antiquity of China's civili- 

 zation pales into insignificance as a world wonder when compared 

 with that of her rock formations- It is not meant to suggest by 

 this that the animals found in the ancient rocks have survived to 

 the present time, but that in China we find animals still living that 

 belong to very old groups. Even in the case of warm-blooded verte- 

 brates, which, geologically speaking, are very recent, we find species 

 belonging to a bygone age, an age that we call prehistoric. We 

 find animals that belong to an age when man used only stone imple- 

 ments, and lived in cave shelters, the Paleolithic age. Such animals 

 have only survived in these regions by taking shelter in the highest 

 mountain ranges. The famous takin (Budorcas) is one of these, 

 the giant panda, or cat-bear (Aihiropus melanoleucus) another. 

 The lagomorphs — pikas and hares — belong to this group, as also do 

 certain of the rodents, such as the allactaga, or jumping rat, and 

 some of the voles. 



Thus it has become customary for naturalists in the museums of 

 Europe and America to look for and expect all kinds of remark- 

 able forms of animals from China, and, periodically, some such ani- 

 mal is discovered. This happens in all branches of animal life. A 

 typical example is that of two species of flea. A rat was caught 

 somewhere in South China, and it was found to contain specimens of 

 a peculiar jigger flea in its ears. These specimens were lost, and 

 never again have similar ones been found. Quite by accident some 

 white maggotlike creatures were found in the nostrils of a roe deer 

 that I shot while on the Clark Expedition in Shensi. These were kept 

 and later were examined at the British Museum, when it was found 

 that they were enormously swollen females of a small black flea 

 that infested the coat of the deer upon which they were found. The 

 species has not since been secured. Other peculiar Chinese animals 

 will be mentioned later ; for the present let us continue for a moment 



