8 



MR. A. DE CARLE SOWERBY ON 



both of these tasks. I agreed to try, but so far have found the 

 collecting of the mammals in question from the same or near-by 

 places as those whence Heude's specimens were secured an almost 

 hopeless task. 



In the first place, many of the species have become very rare in 

 the past few years. Then, too, the conditions under which one 

 lias to work can never yield the same results as were obtained by 

 Heude's collectors. A protracted residence in each type-locality 

 would be necessary, while one would have to enlist the services of 

 local native hunters with a knowledge of the country and quarry 

 to secure the required specimens. For instance, the difficulty 

 of securing specimens of the serow may be gathered from the 

 account of Fenwick Owen's recent trip through Central China. 



Four successive trips into Manchuria on my part have yielded 

 only one specimen of pig, four bears, three wapiti (or red deer), 

 one roe, and two gorals. No sika were secured, though specimens 

 in captivity were seen. These trips have taken a considerable 

 amount of time and money, and the poor results, so far as the 

 larger mammals are concerned, have been disappointing in the 

 extreme ; but, with the great increase of settlers, the cutting 

 away of the big forests, and the unceasing hunting on the part 

 of natives, to which the animals are subject, one could expect 

 nothing else. 



On the Yang-tze, where, in Heude's time, the sika seems to 

 have been so plentiful, that beautiful deer is now very rare, while 

 wild pigs are noticeably fewer than they were, large specimens 

 being particularly difficult to secure. 



Atrip made by me last spring (1915) into the high moun- 

 tainous region of South Shensi after big game yielded only a 

 couple of takins. Serows and gorals, although said to be plentiful 

 by the natives, were not even seen. Several hunting and col- 

 lecting expeditions into Central and West China in the past few 

 years have yielded little better results. Fenwick Owen, already 

 mentioned, got one serow, but neither goral nor wild pig. 

 J. W. Brooke got a goral and a couple of serows, which the late 

 Mr. Lydekker mentioned in a paper read before the Zoological 

 Society of London in 1908. 



Mr. Malcolm P. Anderson's last expedition yielded no speci- 

 mens of the serow, though he went right through the country 

 inhabited by those animals. He secured a goral and a wild pig 

 in the Tai-pei-shan region of South Shensi, 



On the Clark expedition in 1909 I secured a goral in the 

 mountains south of Si-an-fu and a fine adult boar in North-Central 

 Shensi, near Yen-an-fu, I have also secured gorals and wild pigs 

 in North and West Shansi, but the mammals of this province, 

 with the exception of the sika, seem to have escaped Heude's 

 attention, so that my specimens can have little or no bearing 

 upon the subject. 



Since, then, the collecting of series of specimens from Heude's 

 type-localities was going to prove a long if not a hopeless 

 task, there remained only the alternative of going over his 



