The wonderful variety in the fauna of the country was due to China's vast territory, varied topography and many kinds.of climate, and especially the age of of the country. It was customary, when discussing the Chinese, to credit them with a very ancient civilization, but geologists averred that the antiquity of China's civilation paled into insignificance as!
verid wonder when compared with that of her rock formations.
did not mean that animals Vin the ancient rocks have survived to the present time, but) there are still animals living in} China belonging to very old groups.! There are even warm-blooded tebrates, geologically considered very recent, of a species belonging to 'a by-gone age which we call prehistoric.
Animals had been found belong-to the Paleolithic Age, when man used only stone implements and lived in eave shelters and which had only survived through avi ken shelter in the highest mountain ranges, these including the famous taken (Budoreas), the giant nanda, or cat hear (Ailuropus melanoleucus), the lagomorphs—pikas and hares—and certain! rodents, such as the allactaga, or} jumping rat, and some of the voles. Thus, said Mr. Sowerby, it had he-come customary to look for and expect all sorts of remarkable animals from China and periodically some were discovered, Hoe mentioned specimens of peculiar jigger flea found in the! but which were lost, and ones had never again been
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.