ON HEUDE ? S CHINESE MAMMALS. 



7 



2. On Hende's Collection of Pigs, Sika, Serows, and 

 Gorals in the Sikawei Museum, Shanghai. By Arthur 

 de Carle Sowerby, F.Z.S. 



[Received October 9, 1916 : Read February 20, 1917.] 

 Index. 



Tbe species of Sus 



„ „ Cervus 



„ Capricornis 



„ „ Nemorlicedus ... 



For many years the numerous species of mammals described 

 or named by Pere Heude in his ' Memoires concernant l'Histoire 

 Naturelle de l'Empire Chinois' have been a stumbling-block in 

 the path of naturalists who have tried to arrive at a proper under- 

 standing of the niammalogy of China and adjacent countries. 



Pere Heude in the eighties and nineties of the last century, 

 with the help of numerous Catholic missionaries in the field, 

 gathered together a fine collection of mammals, birds, reptiles, 

 and other forms of animal life in the Sikawei Museum at 

 Shanghai. With his peculiar ideas on what constitutes specific 

 characters in animals, he set about classifying and naming 

 such mammals as came into his hands, with the result that he 

 enormously multiplied the number of species in China, especially 

 in the genera Sus, Cervus, Capricornis, and JVemorhcedus, thereby 

 reducing the subject to a state bordering on chaos ; subsequent 

 workers finding themselves confronted with such bewildering 

 facts as eight species of pigs and eleven species of sika (six from" 

 one locality and seven from another) scattered over China, not 

 to mention some seventeen species of goral and seven or eight 

 bears. That such could not really be the case was obvious, but 

 without good series of specimens from Heude's type- localities, or 

 at least his own specimens for examination, the matter could not 

 be cleared up. 



During the past few years collectors and sportsmen have secured 

 a few specimens of the larger mammals such as pigs, serows, gorals, 

 and bears, but the material has been altogether insufficient to be 

 of much help. 



I believe attempts have been made to get hold of Heude's 

 collection, either by purchase or exchange, for some of the more 

 important museums of Europe and America, but without success. 



There remained therefore only two things to be done- — either 

 the securing of series of specimens from all of Heude's collecting- 

 grounds, or the revision, on the part of someone fitted for the 

 task, of his collection in the Sikawei Museum. 



In 1914 Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, jun., of the Division of Mammals, 

 Smithsonian Institution, suggested to me that I should attempt 



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