NATURAL HISTORY OF CHINA SOWEEBY 357 



our knowledge of the birds of China, their published papers appear- 

 ing usually either in the Ibis or the Bulletin of the British Ornithol- 

 ogists' Club. 



A naturalist whose name must be mentioned was Pere P. M. Heude, 

 founder and first curator of the Zikawei Museum of Natural History. 

 He managed to get together a very fine collection of Chinese animals, 

 and published extensively upon the material that he gathered round 

 him in the museum. Unfortunately he entertained somewhat peculiar 

 views upon what constitutes a species, which led him to describe an 

 enormous number of new forms on grounds that no modern naturalist 

 can accept. Thus the value of his writings was seriously impaired, 

 though the fine series of specimens in the museum remain a monu- 

 ment to his zeal as a curator and collector. His principal publication 

 was his "Memoires concernant l'Histoire Naturelle de l'Empire 

 Chinois," and he dealt mainly with mammals, though birds, certain 

 reptiles, and certain fresh-water mollusks were also touched upon. 



As regards the cold-blooded vertebrates of China, the most im- 

 portant names are those of G. A. Boulenger and C. Tate Regan, of 

 the British Museum, and L. Stejneger, of tHe United States National 

 Museum, whose writings upon the fresh-water fish, amphibians, and 

 reptiles are to be found scattered through numerous scientific jour- 

 nals. The earlier workers upon the reptiles and batrachians were 

 Cantor and Giinther, and upon the fishes Giinther, Valenciennes, 

 Bleeker, Basilewsky, and Richardson. 



Besides all these naturalists, there are a great number who have 

 contributed to the literature upon the zoology of China, but it is 

 impossible here to give all their names, or even an adequate idea of 

 the vastness of that literature. A partial bibliography of the orni- 

 thology of China, which Doctor Richmond, of the United States Na- 

 tional Museum, very kindly prepared at my request, contains the 

 titles of over 700 publications, which are scattered throughout numer- 

 ous journals, or have appeared in book form. It is almost certain 

 that no library in the world contains a complete set of all the pub- 

 lications upon the fauna of China, though that of the Natural His- 

 tory Museum at South Kensington (British Museum) is remarkably 

 replete with this form of literature. The libraries in China, alas, 

 contain very little in this line, far too little to enable anything serious 

 in the way of research work to be done. The geological department 

 in Peking is trying to form a good working library, while the Zikawei 

 Museum has a fairly useful one. The library of the late Dr. G. E. 

 Morrison, of Peking, contained a good collection of zoological works 

 on China, but it was sold and taken away to Japan. This lack of 

 the literature upon the subject is a very serious handicap to anyone 

 trying to do original research in the country, while another serious 



