10 THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CHINA 



The Carnivora are represented by several important 

 groups, namely, the Ursidae, or bears; the Canidae, wolves, 

 foxes, and dogs; the Mustelidae, or weasels and their rela- 

 tions; and the Felidae, or cats. It would be interesting to 

 follow out the various branches of this order, but neither 

 time nor space will permit of it. Sufficient it is to note that 

 in this group of mammals, as in the last, China possesses 

 some remarkable forms all her own. Such an animal is 

 the great panda, or cat bear (Ailuropus melanolecus) of the 

 Tibetan borders. The small panda (Ailurus fulgens) is 

 another. The tiger was at one time, as the leopard is to-day, 

 almost universally distributed, but now it is only rarely found 

 in the north and central regions, though one form is common 

 in the south and south-east, while the Manchurian forests 

 contain numbers of the great woolly tiger. Small cats and 

 civets are extremely abundant in the south-east, less so in 

 ♦ other parts. 



Of the Chinese rodents the most interesting are some of 

 the voles and their not very distant relations the molerats 

 (Myospalax) and the bamboo rat (Rhisomys). It is perfectly 

 obvious from a comparison of the two forms that the molerat 

 is a development from the bamboo rat, it having carried the 

 specializations of the latter for a subterranean life a con- 

 siderable step further. The bamboo rat, living in the dense 

 bamboo jungle where it burrows for its food, the roots and 

 shoots of the bamboo, frequently stays above ground since 

 it is well protected by the heavy vegetation. The molerat, 

 on the other hand, having pushed northward, where vegeta- 

 tion is very much more scarce, has been forced to become 

 almost exclusively subterranean in its habits and mode of 

 life, and thus has become even more mole-like than the 

 bamboo rat, developing larger burrowing claws in the fore- 

 paws, and almost losing the external ear and the eye. 

 In Central, South, and West China all kinds of rats, more 

 or less related to the common rat, predominate, but in the 

 north we have an intrusion of Mongolian or Steppe forms, 

 such as the jumping rats, Dipus and Allactaga, the gerbils 

 (Meriones), and the ground squirrel (Citellus). Here also 

 are to be found the various members of the hamster family, 

 rats characterized by the presence of large cheekpouches. 

 Squirrels are universally distributed, characteristic forms 

 being the huge flying squirrels, David's squirrel, the fur 

 squirrels, and the chipmunks. The largest rodent in the 

 country is the porcupine (Hyst/ix), which occurs throughout 

 the Yangtse Valley and in South and West China. 



