NATURAL. HISTORY OP CHINA — SOWERBY 359 



the musk to the north and west, and the others to the central and 

 southern parts. The famous David's deer (Elaphurus dcuvidianus) , 

 known to the Chinese as the Mei, or Ssu-puhsiang, meaning the 

 " four unlikes," has become extinct, at least in a wild state. This 

 and the river deer are purely Chinese forms, the wapiti being Euro- 

 pean and North American in its affinities, the musk Himalayan, and 

 the sika, the muntjacs, and the mouse deer oriental. 



Wild swine of the Sus scrofa type are almost universally distrib- 

 uted throughout the country. Antelopes and wild sheep belong to 

 the north, the serows and gorals to the highlands, where such occur, 

 and the takins to the highest mountain ranges of central and west 

 China. The yak occurs in a wild state in the highlands on the 

 Tibetan border, and the wild ass in Chinese Turkestan. 



The Carnivora are represented by several important groups, 

 namely, the Ursidae, or bears ; the Canidae, wolves, foxes, and dogs ; 

 the Mustelidae, or weasels and their relations; and the Felidae, or 

 cats. It would be interesting to follow out the various branches of 

 this order, but neither time nor space will permit of it. Sufficient it 

 is to note that in this group of mammals, as in the last, China 

 possesses some remarkable forms all her own. Such an animal is 

 the great panda, or cat bear (Ailuropus melanolecus) of the Tibetan 

 borders. The small panda {Ailurus fulgens) is another. The tiger 

 was at one time, as the leopard is to-day, almost universally dis- 

 tribftted, but now it is only rarely found in the north and central 

 regions, though one form is common in the south and southeast, 

 while the Manchurian forests contain numbers of the great woolly 

 tiger. Small cats and civets are extremely abundant in the south- 

 east ; less so in other parts. 



Of the Chinese rodents the most interesting are some of the voles 

 and their not very distant relations the molerats (Myospalax) and 

 the bamboo rat {Rhisomys). It is perfectly obvious from a com- 

 parison of the two forms that the molerat is a development from the 

 bamboo rat, it having carried the specializations of the latter for a 

 subterranean life a considerable step further. The bamboo rat, living 

 in the dense jungle where it burrows for its food, the roots and 

 shoots of the sword-grass, frequently stays above ground since it is 

 well protected by the heavy vegetation. The molerat, on the other 

 hand, having pushed northward, where vegetation is very much 

 more scarce, has been forced to become almost exclusively subter- 

 ranean in its habits and mode of life, and thus has become even more 

 molelike than the bamboo rat, developing larger burrowing claws in 

 the forepaws, and almost losing the external ear and the eye. In 

 central, south, and west China all kinds of rats, more or less related 

 to the common rat, predominate, but in the north we have an intru- 

 sion of Mongolian or Steppe forms, such as the jumping rats, Dipus 



