44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 66 



The mammals and birds are of great value to the Museum as the 

 first adequate representation of a fauna that has particular interest 

 in connection with previous work on other parts of the Malay 

 Archipelago. Some of Mr. Raven's Celebean photographs, also that 

 of the skull of a babirvisa, which he collected, are here reproduced 

 (figs. 53 to 57). Early in the summer Mr. Raven returned to America 

 and spent several months on vacation and in preparing for further 

 explorations in Celebes and other parts of the East Indies. Doctor 

 Abbott has generously offered his continued support to this work. 

 Mr. Raven left Washington for the east by way of Japan and Singa- 

 pore, about the middle of October. Two months later he rejiorted 

 from Buitenzorg, Java, that he was making good progress toward the 

 collecting ground. 



EXPLORATIONS IN CHINA AND MANCHURIA 



Mr. Arthur de C. Sowerby has been very active in China and 

 Manchuria. Early in the year he made a short trip to the recently 

 opened hunting reserve, about 60 miles northeast of Peking, north 

 of the Eastern Tombs, and south of Jehol. Here, he writes, " I 

 found a well wooded district which I am convinced contains a lot 

 of new stuff. The best thing that I got was a series of squirrels 

 of a species quite new to me. They are striped like chipmunks, but 

 have a thick, soft, much more grayish fur. They are almost entirely 

 arboreal in habits, living in holes in oak trees. These squirrels 

 are very active and take enormous leaps from one tree to another, 

 though they cannot be said to ' fly.' There is no cheek pouch as in 

 the chipmunks." He also obtained an interesting hare, and a cat. 

 Pelis cnptilnra, not previously represented in the Museum by a good 

 specimen. The squirrel is a representative of a group hitherto un- 

 known in northeastern China. It has been described as a new species 

 under the name Taiiiiops vcstitns. 



In March and April ^Ir. Sowerby visited the Tai-pei-shan district 

 of southern Shensi with the special object of observing the race of 

 Takin, a large goat-like animal, peculiar to that region. " I am 

 pleased to say," he writes under date of May 29, " that I have a 

 fine bull Takin (Biidorcas bcdfordi) for you which I shot at 300 

 yards range. It is an enormous animal." The skull of this individual 

 is shown in figure 58. He further obtained a female of the Chinese 

 musk deer, now becoming very scarce as the result of excessive hunt- 

 ing by the natives ; also a few interesting small mammals including 

 four pikas, small, lemming-like animals related to the hares. " The 



