MANCHURIA—SOWERBY. 467 
from tip to tip, and was estimated at something over 600 pounds in 
weight. It was not fat, and the natives told me that this species 
did not get fat till much later in the autumn. It was subsequently 
identified with Heude’s Ursus‘ cavifrons, and appears to form, with 
other related species, a connecting link between the prehistoric cave 
bears of Europe and the North American grizzlies. So far as I am 
aware, this specimen, which now lies in the Smithsonian Institution 
collection, is the only complete one existing in any museum, though 
a skull, on which Heude based his description, lies in the Zikawei 
Museum in Shanghai. The other two bears were specimens of the 
common black bear of Manchuria, usually referred to Ursus*® tibe- 
tanus, but really a distinct species described by Heude under the name 
of U. ussuricus. 
The forest in this part was very fine, being composed of oak, pine, 
spruce, and walnut, all of large size, with a considerable sprinkling 
of various forms of maple, which in their fiery autumn foliage 
formed a riot of color hard to describe. Everywhere the under- 
growth was formed of a tangle of wild vine, richly laden with clust- 
ers of dark, well-flavored grapes, interspersed with ferns and various 
small shrubs. 
There was a plethora of edible fungi, of which the Chinese recog- 
nized some four or five varieties, and which they were gathering and 
drying for their own winter use or export. Throughout the whole 
region were many dead-fall traps of ingenious design, from which 
one argued that in the winter the country was the resort of fur trap- 
pers. Indeed, I learnt that sables, martins, ermines, minks, otters, 
and squirrels were anually caught in large numbers. 
My last expedition into Manchuria had for its object the explora- 
tion of the territory along the Amur River, but, as already explained, 
this was found impossible owing to the attitude of the Russian 
authorities. Rifles, shotguns, and cameras were forbidden on the 
Amur, while every stranger was viewed with distrust and suspicion. 
The reason for this was that a considerable number of Austrian and 
German prisoners had escaped from the detention camps in the Amur 
Province and formed a menace to the local populace. Not only so, 
but 1t was known that passports were being forged by the Germans 
in Shanghai or Tientsin, by means of which their nationals were 
getting about as British or French subjects. Thus it will readily be 
understood that a naturalist with his rifle, ammunition, and camera, 
and other more mysterious implements would prove an object of deep 
suspicion. Under the circumstances, after having traveled down the 
Sungari almost to its junction with the Amur, and having made col- 
lections at one or two places on the Heilungkiang bank of the former, 
*\Now superseded by the generic name Speleus, Brookes. 
5 Now superseded by the generic name Selenarctos, Heude. 
