EXPLORATIONS OF THE REV. DA\TD C. GRAHAM 

 IN SZECHUAN. CHINA 



By HERBERT FRIEDMANN, 



Curator, Division of Birds, U. S. National Museinn 



For some time the Rev. David C. Graham has Ijeen planning a col- 

 lecting expedition on I)ehalf of the Smithsonian Institution to the 

 Moupin district in Szechiian. 2^Ioupin was first explored zoologically 

 by the Abhe Armand David, but owing to the difiiculties to be over- 

 come in getting there, and the remoteness of the locality, it has been 

 visited by but few naturalists since his time. Dr. Graham attempted 

 to reach this celebrated s|)ot last year, and, for that matter, had ])lanne(l 

 to go there several times in the last few years, but each time as he was 

 about to start, some insurmountable obstacle, such as civil war or 

 swarms of robbers, prevented his carrying out his designs. It was 

 therefore a matter of great satisfaction, both to him and to the 

 Smithsonian Institution, that the summer of 1929 witnessed the frui- 

 tion of his plans and rewarded his i)atient efforts with success. 



( )n reading his rough field notes, jotted down faithfully day after 

 day when wearying marches and general bodily fatigue made writing 

 an irksome though self imjwsed task, one is struck with the num])er 

 and variety of mishajis. dela\s. disappointments, and trou])les too 

 numerous to list, that were the almost daily e.\])erience of Dr. (iraham. 

 and the successful comjiletion of the trip is therefore a tribute to his 

 zeal and perseverance in the face of discouragements that would 

 have turned back many a less experienced traveler in China. Not only 

 was the tri]:) accompanied liy the usual labor troubles with indifferent, 

 stupid, and ignorant coolies, by petty but nevertheless, serious thefts 

 of pieces of scientific equipment, but the whole expedition moved 

 against a threatening background, first of mere angry nunors, later 

 of more rumbling reverberations of war, the sort of seiui-organized 

 warfare that serves more to render travel dangerous to civilians than 

 to the contending military grou]>s. A few quotations from Dr. 

 Graham's diary may serve to give some insight into the conditions 

 under which he worked. 



Thus, while still at his headquarters at Suifu, some six weeks before 

 starting for ^Nloupin, he writes that, ". . . . the postmaster in- 

 formed me that there is fighting near Su Chow, east of here, and that 

 there has been fighting at Ichang. Letters are not getting through 



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