36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 66 



parts of China, and from other regions in the east. He made this 

 material the basis of many technical papers. In all of these he applied 

 a standard of specific differentiation so unlike those in use by other 

 zoologists that his work could not be understood. Mr. Sowerby 

 has been able to make good preliminary reviews of Heude's bears, 

 pigs, and goat-antelopes. Papers on these three important groups 

 may be expected to appear in the near future. 



In March Mr. Sowerby returned to the Yangtze. This expedition 

 was an almost complete failure. Mr. Sowerby writes (June lo, 

 1916) : 



My recent trip to Che Kiang was brought to a summary close by the out- 

 break of hostihties in that region. I could not get any transport and very 

 nearly had my retreat cut off. Nothing can be done now till the provinces have 

 come to an agreement as to who shall be president and just how the govern- 

 ment is to be run. There is only north Chili left to work in and I hope to go 

 there this autumn. China is in such an unsettled state that if it were not for 

 the war in Europe it would be attracting everybody's attention. Conditions 

 are no better than they were during the revolution of 191 1. 



No specimens collected during 1916 have yet been received from 

 Mr. Sowerby. Material from the Yangtze and from several locali- 

 ties in northern China is expected soon to arrive. 



CiERRiT S. Miller, Jr. 



EXPLORATIONS IN SANTO DOMINGO 



Dr. W. L. Abbott, whose energies for nearly thirty years past 

 have been devoted to explorations in the Old World, made a short 

 visit to Santo Domingo (the scene of his earliest expedition, in 

 1883), where he spent a few weeks in late summer and fall, 1916, at 

 the eastern end of the island, chiefly in the vicinity of the Bay of 

 Samana, with trips to several localities in the highlands of the 

 interior, notably at Constanza and El Rio. On this expedition he 

 made a very interesting collection of mammals, birds, reptiles, 

 mollusks, insects, and Indian relics. 



In the coast region, Dr. Abbott investigated numerous caves in 

 search of remains of an extinct mammalian fauna. The results 

 of this part of his work have been described by Mr. Miller (Smith- 

 sonian Misc. Coll., Vol. 66, No. 12, December 7, 1916). One of 

 the most interesting mammals whose remains were found in these 

 caves is a large rodent, described from a freshly killed specimen 

 in 1836, but not captured since then. Whether it is extinct or not 

 is at present an uncertainty. The skull found by Dr. Abbott is shown 

 in figure 38. At San Lorenzo Bay, on the south side of the Bay 



