ON nEiDLs chinehb: mammals. 



2. On Heiide's Collection of I'igs, Sika, Serow?, and 

 Gonils in the Sikawei Museum, Slmngluii. By Arthur 

 i)E Carle Sowerby, F.Z.S. 



[Received Octobev 9, 1916 : Read February 20, 1917.] 



Index. 



Pajje 



The species of Sus 11 



„ ,, C'ervus 16 



„ „ Cuprico7'nis 20 



„ „ Nemorhadus 24 



For many years tlie numeroiis species of mammals described 

 or named by Pere Heude in Lis ' Memoires concernant I'Histoire 

 Natiirelle de I'Empire Chinois' have been a stumbling-block in 

 the path of naturalists who ha,ve tided to arrive at a pi'oper under- 

 standing of the mammalogy of China and adjacent countries. 



Pere Pleude in the eighties and nineties of the last century, 

 with the help of numerous Catholic missionaries in the field, 

 gathered together a fine collection of mammals, birds, i-eptiles, 

 and other forms of animal life in the Sikawei Museum at 

 Shanghai. With his peculiar ideas on what constitutes specific 

 characters in animals, he set about classifying and naming 

 such mammals as came into his hands, with the result that he 

 enormously multiplied the number of species in China, especially 

 in the genera Sus, Cervus, Capricornis, and JS^emorhcedus, thereby 

 reducing the subject to a state bordeiing on chaos ; subsequent 

 workers finding themselves confronted with such bewildering 

 facts as eight species of j^igs and eleven species of sika (six from 

 one locality and seven from another) scattered over China, not 

 to mention some seventeen species of goral and seven or eight 

 beai-s. That such could not really be the case was obvious, but 

 Avithout good sei'ies of specimens from Heude's type-localities, or 

 at least his own specimens for examination, the matter could not 

 be cleared up. 



During the past few years collectors and sportsmen have secured 

 a, few specimens of the lai-ger mammals such as pigs, serows, gorals, 

 and bears, but the material has been altogether insufficient to be 

 of much help. 



I believe attempts have been made to get hold of Heude's 

 collection, either by purchase or exchange, for some of the moi'e 

 important museums of Europe and America, but without success. 



There remained therefore only tAvo things to be done — either 

 the securing of series of specimens from all of Heude's collecting- 

 grounds, or the reAdsion, on the part of someone fitted for the 

 task, of his collection in the Sikawei Museum. 



In 1914 Mr. Gerrit S. Mdler, jun., of the Division of Mammals, 

 Smithsonian Institution, suggested to me that I should attempt 



