436 



NATURE 



$j$ept. 6, i 



the cause of science ; for example, Father Montrouzier has 

 studied the fauna of several of the islands of Oceania, and 

 Fathers Duparquet, Augouard, and Le Roy, have sent 

 from Africa many valuable collections. Our Museums 

 and our naturalists have also received from the interior of 

 America many objects more or less important, but chiefly 

 many remarkable Coleoptera and Lepidoptera from MM. 

 Sipolis, Gaujon, and Dorme, French Lazarists, who 

 are quite at the head of the ardent collectors in the 

 New World. To return to China, through the good 

 offices of the Franciscan missionaries of Shen-si, M. 

 Romanet du Cailland was able to obtain and introduce to 

 France several new species of vine which have been 

 cultivated under the names Vitis Romaneti, Vitis Pag- 

 nuccii, Spinovitis Davidis. This last species was found 

 by M. David in a wild state in the central mountains of 

 Tsin-lin, and is notable for having its stems covered with 

 thorns. In spite of its somewhat aromatic flavour, it is 

 well adapted for wine-making. 



M. David then proceeds to particularize his own 

 labours, and before doing so he gives a short history of his 

 life, into which we shall not follow him. Shortly after the 

 Anglo-French expedition to China he was ordered by his 

 superiors to proceed to that country. Before setting out 

 he was advised by several members of the Institute, 

 amongst them being MM. Stanislas Julien, E. Milne- 

 Edwards, Elie de Beaumont, and Decaisne, to make 

 periodical reports. When he had settled down at Pekin 

 in the year 1862, he began to explore the surroundings of 

 Pekin to prepare materials for a natural history collection, 

 and to send reports and specimens to the Jardin des 

 Plantes. His first consignment of plants and animals was 

 highly praised by the authorities of this institution, and 

 grants of money were sent him to help him to proceed. 

 The increasing importance of the results obtained in 

 China made the Professors of the Museum believe that it 

 was an Eldorado for naturalists, and accordingly they 

 begged the Superior-General of the Lazarists to permit 

 M. David to explore the lesser-known provinces of China. 

 M. Etienne consented readily, chiefly because the request 

 was made through the Government itself ; and the 

 Minister of Public Instruction officially styled M. David's 

 proposed journey a scientific mission, and supplied the 

 necessary funds. With regard to the collections sent 

 home by him, he says that only zoologists can appreciate 

 the great work of M. Milne-Edwards, entitled " Recherches 

 sur les Mammiferes," which, with the exception of a single 

 species, treats of Chinese animals. The greater portion 

 of these were sent by M. David, the new species alone 

 amounting to sixty-five. One of the most remarkable of 

 these is the Semnopithecus roxellana, a curious monkey 

 with a nose very much turned up and a green face, with 

 his back ornamented with long brown and white hair, 

 whose haunts are in the cold forests of Tibet. It is a 

 sort of counterpart of the long-nosed monkeys of Borneo. 

 Besides this animal, China supplied two others, one of 

 which was capable of bearing the severe winters of the 

 north of Tchely, to which point its habitat extends. 

 Another important discovery of the Tibetan region is 

 the extraordinary Ursus mclanoleucus, for which there was 

 no generic name. The Ailuropus meiatioleucus appears 

 to be of great rarity in the very small region it inhabits. 

 All the Museums of the world envy the Jardin des Plantes 

 the possession of four specimens — the only ones M. 

 David met. In Tibet also he saw the Nectogale 

 eiegans, a new kind of aquatic insectivorous animal, the 

 hair of which assumes all the colours of the rainbow when 

 the little creature is in the water. He also secured several 

 varieties of this animal. In the lofty forests of Moupinn 

 he found the Budorcas, a large ruminant of a grayish- 

 white colour, with no tail and with immense horns. The 

 hunters of the country regard this animal as the tiger is 

 regarded in India. In spite of its heavy build it scrambles 

 over the most rugged rocks as lightly as a chamois. In 



almost every district in China he came on some treasure. 

 The deer with large hoofs and a long tail (Elaphi/rus 

 davidianus) is now pretty well known ; but the species is, 

 unfortunately, threatened with extinction in China. In 

 the genus Mus alone he got twenty-seven species. He 

 noted down two hundred species of Mammiferce, and in 

 this number there are hardly five or six, omitting the 

 domestic species, which appear identical with their 

 species in Europe. * 



With regard to the birds of China, M. David has 

 prepared, with the help of M. G. Masson, a book on 

 them, in which he recognizes 807 species either living in 

 China or coming there regularly. Amongst the greatest 

 novelties he mentions the large Lophophorus of Tibet, 

 which lives at a height of above 12,000 feet; the three 

 known Crossoptilon, of which one is white, another blue, 

 and the third black and white ; the Tragopan, with a large 

 many-coloured band around the throat, and its head 

 ornamented with two very thin, blue, and fleshy horns ; 

 two Eulophes, crested pheasants, which are the most 

 appreciated dish by gourmands ; the sacred pheasant, 

 with a tail over six feet long ; the Amherst pheasant, now 

 become, like the preceding, a common bird in the parks ; 

 and a new species of pheasant, dark-coloured, and always 

 living under trees. All these birds, and hundreds of others 

 from the same source, are exhibited in the French 

 Museum. Some of them, according to the method 

 common among naturalists, are named after the dis- 

 coverer. Thus the Cygnus davidi, a very rare swan 

 with red legs, and the Pterorhinus davidi, a kind 

 of mocking-bird captured in the woods in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Pekin ; the Sygrnium davidi, a nocturnal 

 rapacious bird of Tibet, described by Mr. Sharp, of 

 the British Museum. M. H. Milne-Edwards, \ Pro- 

 fessor at the Sorbonne, has also affixed M. David's 

 name to two new species which he has described, 

 Carpddacus davidianus and Oreopneuste armandi. China 

 has not our sparrow, chaffinch, goldfinch, or linnet ; our 

 warbler, redbreast, and nightingale are unknown ; their 

 thrushes, blackbirds, tomtits, and crows, differ very much 

 from ours. In fact, speaking generally, there is only 

 about one-fifth of the Chinese birds found in Europe, and 

 the greater part of these are very different in the two 

 regions. The Eastern Gallince, Insectivores, and Rapaces, 

 have scarcely any species like them in our continent. A 

 very remarkable fact is that we find certain groups of 

 birds within certain narrow limits where they are repre- 

 sented by numerous species, whilst they are totally absent 

 from all other parts of the earth, even from those parts 

 where it would be quite possible for them to live. Thus 

 there are forty kinds of the beautiful pheasant class, all 

 grouped around Tibet, while there is not a single member 

 of the class in any other quarter of the globe. So the 

 Crateropodes, of which there are thirty or forty species in 

 China, do not appear to have any representatives in 

 Europe. These and other facts furnish M. David with 

 what he considers unanswerable objections to the theory 

 that they were all created ab origine. Is it not more 

 reasonable, he asks, to admit that the principal types 

 of plants and animals having once appeared on earth, 

 where and when it pleased Providence, have undergone 

 slow variations which have divided them by degrees into 

 species and varieties ? America has upwards of four 

 hundred species of humming-birds, while there is not a 

 single other specimen in the rest of the tropical world, 

 where those little creatures could live equally well. Every 

 class of the animal kingdom, he says, furnishes similar 

 examples and analogous facts. 



The subject of reptiles, Batrachia, and fishes, which M. 

 David only worked up slightly, has been carefully pursued 

 by M. Dumeril, Dr. Savage, and M. E. Blanchard. The 

 last-named gentleman described before the Academy of 

 Sciences, under the name of Sieboldia davidtana, an 

 immense salamander which lives on fish and crabs in fresh 



