hs 
5S 
May, 1919 MALCOLM PLAYFAIR ANDERSON 117 
labor, and Tsushima, Iki, Goto, and finally this part of China have taken their 
share of my time. In all I have collected 668 specimens of mammals and 309 
specimens of birds, a total of 977 specimens. Since leaving Mindanao I have 
met with uninterrupted success.’’ During the whole time that he was in Min- 
danao he was ill, sometimes prostrated, with chills and fever; so that of the 
little he did there his notes contain little. In general his notebooks are kept 
with great care and, as he regarded himself not merely as a collector but as 
an explorer, contain much more than the ordinary field-notes of a naturalist. 
If it be remembered that most of these collections were made in lands set- 
tled from very ancient time, where wild life is scarce and where hunting and 
trapping are pursued under a variety of inhibitions and obstacles, his record 
will be perceived to represent more industry, energy, pluck, and persistence 
than would be imagined by one who had not read the notebooks. Even in times 
of enforced idleness from collecting and observing, as when travelling, waiting 
for boats or permits or for his baggage, he tried to spend his time to the best 
advantage in walking about with his eyes open, questioning the people, photo- 
graphing, etc. Here, for example, is the record of January 1, 1907, made at a 
little port on the Island of Tsu-shima, where the crew of the small craft on 
which he was voyaging, had landed to beguile twenty-four hours in drinking 
sake. After describing the outlook from a hill he had climbed with his Jap- 
anese hunter, he goes on: 
‘From our hilltop we wandered on down a trail singing and whistling, till 
we met a man on horseback and another on foot. The horseman dismounted 
and bowed, then passed on. The man on foot paused and addressed us. He 
was a funny old fellow with a bald head. Orii answered, told him our busi- 
ness, and asked him about animals. His answers were not very clear, as he had 
had too much sake. However we gathered that one of his neighbors had recent- 
Jy killed a wildeat, and the old man thought possibly it was still unskinned. We 
asked directions and were told to go to the next village and ask for his house 
(his name, he said, was ‘Man of the Shining Head’ and he was distinguished as 
the best drinker in his village). We found the owner of the cat (which was 
skinned). I bought the skin for two yen, and asked about the body. It had 
been given away. We went to the neighbor who had received it and found 
that he had eaten part of the cat and buried the head and vertebrae. To dig 
the thing up was the work of a moment, and we were in possession of scientific 
evidence of the presence of the wildcat on Tsu-shima.’’ 
To give some idea of his method, I copy a few of his notes on birds, all 
taken from his diary of the two years, 1904-1906. His later notebooks, which | 
I have not yet read, may contain observations of still greater interest. Here 
is a list of birds secured in Korea between August and December, 1905: 
Brown-eared bulbul, blue flycatcher, Siberian tit, white eye, Japanese tit, 
green-finch, Iyngipicus, red-bellied woodpecker, slender-billed nuthateh, pigmy 
nuthatch, nightingale (warbler), owl, Quelpart shrike, gray robin-like thrush, 
robin, wren, jay, magpie, small yellowish brown-breasted finch, brown-headed 
shrike, skylark, large blue-grey shrike, Korean sparrow, long-billed sparrow 
(bunting?), black-throated sparrow, crossbill, purple finch, rosy-tinted tit, 
marsh tit, redstart, dipper, water-ousel, bullfinch, pipit, lyngipieus sp. The 
following were only observed: 
Crow, large hawk, small hawk, small kingfisher, white and black wagtail, 
pheasant, quail, swallow, creeper, large pigeon, Picus martius. 
