THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CHINA 



found. The species has not since been secured. Other 

 peculiar Chinese animals will be mentioned later: for the 

 present let us continue for a moment to consider the 

 palaeontological side of our subject, since this bears so 

 strongly uporj the present distribution of the animals of 

 China. 



It may be taken that a fair amount is known about the 

 fossils that occur in the older formations, since several able 

 palaeontologists have been devoting their time to this branch 

 of study. A geological museum has been started in Peking, 

 as well as a geological survey of the whole of China, and 

 already a considerable amount of valuable material upon 

 which experts are now working has been gathered. It is 

 the more recent formations, however, that most interest us 

 here, since it is from them that we may find out when the 

 animals we now know to exist in the country arrived there, 

 and also what forms immediately preceded them. Unfort- 

 unately these recent deposits have not as yet been well 

 worked or explored, though some interesting results have 

 already been obtained. Thus we learn that the porcupine, 

 DOW not known to occur north of the Yangtse Valley, once 

 inhabited the province of Chihli, numerous remains of the 

 animal haying been found in recent deposits round Peking. 

 Such a discovery is significant, for it shows that at no very 

 distant date, ecologically speaking, that part of China had 

 I very much warmer climate than it has now. Couple with 

 this fact, my recent discovery in the Imperial Hunting 

 Grounds of North-eastern Chihli, of a species of squirrel 

 (Tamiopt), which belongs to a genus that does not occur 

 elsewhere in China north of Ssuchuan in the west and 

 i hckian" in the east, and it becomes obvious that the forests 

 Wesl Central, South-west, and North-east China were 

 at one time connected, a belt of heavy vegetation and trees 

 probably extending right the way from Indo-Chma to the 

 borders of Manchuria. 



While exploring in Manchuria, I secured a specimen ot 

 a Large hear that could not be classed either with the brown 

 or the black bears of Asia. It was undoubtedly a grizzly, 

 hut up to that time the living grizzlies were supposed to be 

 oonnned to North America. I was able to show that this 

 bear was indeed a true grizzly, and also that there were 

 other grizzlies in Asia. This very clearly shows how the 

 grizzliS came to be present in North America for these 

 Latic forms are undoubtedly connecting links between the 

 prehistoric grizzlies or cave bears of England and Western 

 n-ope winch became extinct only after the fourth glacia- 



