﻿NO. lO SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I923 3I 



either the men or the canoe but the supposition is that they were drowned. 

 However, there is still the chance of their having been blown out into the 

 current and carried away clinging to the overturned canoe. Thirty boats 

 have been dragging the lake, all day, without success. The paddles came 

 ashore near the spot where the men had last been seen. That spot is one of 

 the most dangerous promontories in the Tung Ting Lake and, annually many 

 boats are wrecked there. (Since writing this the bodies of both men have 

 been recovered.) I have everything ready for my start, except the shipping 

 of the specimens to the United States. My porters arrived today, ten of them, 

 and a right hefty looking bunch they are. They have contracted to carry a 

 minimum load of one hundred pounds at a maximum rate of thirty miles a 

 day, for the magnificent wages of two dollars (U. S. currency) per month, 

 plus their food. Everything in my outfit seems satisfactory with the exception 

 of the auxiliary shells. They seem to be loaded too heavy for about one in 

 every twenty explodes. As a general rule when that happens, the base of 

 the shell is blown off as neatly as if it had been filed. I have several times 

 been temporarily blinded by the powder that blew back through the locking 

 mechanism. The country around Yochow is very well differentiated as to 

 topography, containing movmtains, rolling hills, plains and swamp lands. 

 Fully half of the land is not under cultivation and is covered with a dense 

 growth of scrub bamboo, buffalo grass and reeds. Here and there areas of 

 scattered forest growth, mosth^ pine and other conifers, are met with but as 

 these for the most part have been planted and are not allowed to grow to 

 any great size, they do not support any strictly forest forms of mammals. The 

 district, up to a few years ago, teemed with a great variety of mammal life 

 but floods, droughts, fires and the great increase in hunters have created 

 such havoc that certain species seem to have been exterminated while most 

 of the others have become very scarce. Prices of skins have risen several 

 hundred per cent in the last few years and this fact is mainly responsible for 

 the increase of hunters, for if a man gets only four or five skins a month, 

 he is making far more money than if he worked for wages. Work in the 

 Yochow District has been closed for the present with a total of 169 mammals, 

 representing nineteen species, and 84 birds. 



On July 2 Hoy left Hiiping for a trip through Hunan and Kiangsi. 

 His field books have not yet been received, consequently no detailed 

 account of his route can now be given. He finally arrived at Kuling, 

 Kiangsi, the summer hill resort for foreigners in the Yang-tze Valley. 

 Many interesting specimens were obtained, though no part of the 

 collection has yet reached Washington. About this trip Hoy writes 

 from Kuling, under date of August 12, 1923 : 



The day after writing my last letter to you, from Iningchow [never received], 

 I had a bad fall and badly wrenched my back. For about a week I was 

 scarcely able to crawl about. Just when my back was getting so I could 

 straighten up I had another accident and shot myself through the left leg 

 with the Colt 45 automatic. The accident was due to a " hang fire." The gun 

 did not go off when the hammer struck and so I lowered the gun to eject the 

 shell when the shell exploded. The bullet struck me on the inside of the leg 



