CHAPTER XXIII. 



THE REPTILES OF NORTH CHINA, MANCHURIA AND MONGOLIA. 



As a rule reptiles in North China and the neighbouring countries 

 are conspicuous by their absence. One may travel for days on end and 

 see nothing more than an occasional lizard, even in country where 

 insect and bird life is abundant, and where the collector may find 

 his traps full every morning of interesting mammals. 



What, one asks, is the cause of this? Why have lizards and 

 snakes failed to establish themselves in these countries in numbers, 

 as they have done elsewhere? How is it that the desert areas of 

 Mongolia, and the forested districts of Shansi, and the Western pro- 

 vinces, do not show such a variety of reptiles as do other deserts and 

 forests of the world? 



The answer to these questions may be found in a study of the 

 climatic conditions. It is not altogether the lack of moisture, though 

 this affects other branches of the cold blooded vertebrates, but it is 

 more the severity of the winters that has so handicapped the reptilian 

 fauna in its struggle for existence in these countries. 



Though it is a well established fact, that snakes and lizards can 

 go long periods without food, there is yet a limit to their endurance 

 in this line; nor do they seem so well adapted to undergo periods of 

 suspended animation as are the Batrachians, (frogs, toads, newts, 

 etc.). They might manage (in Manchuria they undoubtedly do) to 

 survive a much longer period of suspended animation, were there more 

 moisture, but the dryness of the North China and Mongolian winter 

 is proverbial, and only a very few species have been able to survive 

 the triple process of freezing, starvation and dessication. 



Very little work has been done on the reptiles of North China 

 and the neighbouring countries, chiefly because this field of research 

 offers such small results. It is probable, therefore, that there are 

 still some undiscovered species, and it might yet pay some one to go 

 into the subject. 



In the course of my various journeys I have come across only 

 twelve distinct species belonging to the class Rcptilia. 



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