MANCHURIA — SOWERBY. 457 
thing of interest regarding that country for me to lay before the 
members of this distinguished society. 
As a field naturalist I have been working under the auspices of the 
United States National Museum, a Government establishment under 
the direction of the Smithsonian Institution. It has been my good 
fortune to make several excursions from my headquarters in Tientsin 
into Manchuria, a land of mighty rivers and great primeval forests, of 
volcanic hills and mountains and wide alluvial plains. 
My first visit was made in the spring and early summer of 1913, 
when I entered Kirin Province, via Kaiyiian on the Moukden-Harbin 
Railwa}^ line, and, after a period spent in the forest to the southeast 
of Chaoyangchen, took boat and explored certain parts of the upper 
Sungari Kiver and its tributaries, finally reaching the town of Kirin, 
or Chuanchang, and thence by river steamer and railway arriving 
back in Tientsin in August. 
In the spring of the following year I made a journey by boat up 
the lower portion of the Yalu River and its tributary, the Hunkiang, 
taking the opportunity to visit Port Arthur and Daln}^ en route. 
The follov/ing autumn and early winter were spent in the forested 
regions in northern Kirin Province, between Harbin and Ninguta, 
In the summer of 1915 I traveled with a friend to Harbin, and 
thence down the Sungari Eiver as far as its junction with the Amur. 
It was found impossible, however, to continue in this direction, owing 
to the suspicion and inimicability of the Russian authorities, so we 
turned back and spent the autumn once more in the forests of north- 
ern Kirin. 
Had I been on a purely geographical quest my wanderings would 
undoubtedly have been of a far wider scope, but it will be readily 
understood that the search for small mammals, birds, reptiles, and 
even larger quarry, depends for its success rather upon getting to 
know one more or less limited area well than in making lengthy and 
rapid traverses of wide stretches of country. The several excursions 
just mentioned were undertaken with a view to tapping typical areas 
in Manchuria, and certainly the results they yielded were highly sat- 
isfactory, though it must be stated at once that little in the waj^ of 
absolutely new species was discovered. 
Before going into details of my own travels, it might be as well to 
take a rapid survey of the geography, configuration, communica- 
tions, and resources of Manchuria as they exist to-da}^ for since 
James and his party and Hosie made their extended journeys in that 
country considerable changes have taken place. The settling up of 
the wilderness by Chinese has continued on an ever-increasing scale ; 
railways, undreamed of then, have come into existence; the great 
rivers of the north have been supplied with steamboat services ; and 
