INTRODUCTION. XV 



from his pen. There are, for example, his "Catalogue of the 

 Mammals of China, south of the Yangtze, and of the Island 

 of Formosa", his "Zoological Notes of a Journey from Can- 

 ton to Peking and Kalgan", his papers on special birds, on 

 reptiles, and on the "Natural History of Hainan". Some of 

 these are illustrated by well drawn and beautifully coloured 

 plates. Twenty years ago or more Mr. Styan, another en- 

 thusiastic bird-lover and collector, was Honorary Curator 

 of the Shanghai Museum, for which he compiled a useful 

 catalogue of the birds then housed there. His own collect- 

 ion of bird-skins, unique in its way, was once thrown open 

 to public view in the rooms of the North China Insurance 

 Company, then in the Hankow Road. I am not aware that 

 Mr. Styan has written much on Chinese birds, a subject he 

 might have adorned; probably not, as he had other calls on 

 his time, but if I remember rightly, he contributed, some 

 years ago, to the pages of "The Field" some graphic notes 

 on bird life as he had seen it in the Yangtze valley. Of 

 naturalists with the hunting instinct strong in them I could 

 mention several. Those who have written, however, have 

 usually taken up rather the material side of houseboating. 

 Mr. Groom's was the earliest book on the subject. His 

 'Sportsman's Diary* 1 was indeed a diary as its name implied, 

 but it was something more, for there were in it valuable 

 notes on many things, including the habits of game 

 birds. Its successor, Mr. Wade's "With Boat and Gun 

 in the Yangtze Valley" was in every way an immense 

 advance, and the second edition of that standard work now 

 announced will doubtless further add to its quality and 

 usefulness. In "Houseboat Days in China", Mr. Bland has 

 largely sunk the sportsman in the naturalist. Bags are 

 scarcely named, but the book is instinct with a love of wild 

 life. He who shares this passion with Mr. Bland will be 

 keenly sensible of his intimate sympathy with his surround- 

 ings and will, with him, revel in the open air delights of the 

 cloudless skies of his winter holidays. When Mr. Bland 

 listens to the early morning melody of a thrush in the 

 magnolias of the Shanghai Public Garden, however, I should 

 very much like to ask if he were quite sure it was not a 

 blackbird, (Meritla Sinensis as above), for it has never been 

 my good fortune to catch a song- thrush in these latitudes 

 in the act of song. Neither have I ever been charmed in 

 this province of Kiangsu with the overhead song of the 

 lark, which Mr. Bland more than hints at on the page follow- 

 ing. Since this statement was first published, however, a 

 courteous correspondent suggests that "in justice to Mr. 

 Bland" I should take a trip to the sea wall, where, if the 

 whether is fine in March, the skylark may be heard singing 



