To the Editor of the "NorricCiiwa Date News"
Si.—I have reed with great interest the account by F.L-T. tu your valuable newspaper of the "adult live female giant panda which Mr. Floyd Tangier "Ajax" Smith is taking to London in the Andre Lebon, this carnivore to leave the shores of China, There appear to be some points in this account which need clearing up. One of these Is that the giant panda (Aitwropoda metanoleuea, David) and its cousins the little pandas (Atlurus fulgens of Nepal and Ailurus fulgens styan Thomas of West China) are definitely distinct from the bears. Sclence entertains no doubts on the matter, These three animals have been placed in a group by themselves, forming a connecting link between the bear family (Ursidae) and the racoon family (Procyonidae). The stomach and entire viscera of the giant panda have been examined in detail in New York at the American Museum of Natural History, and have been compared with those of the bear and other animals by Mr, H. Raven, who had these parts;"éarefully preserved, from an adult specimen shot on the Dean Sage West China Expedition in 1934. Mr, Raven's re~ port appeared in the "American Museum Novitates," No. 877, August 8, 1096. In the same journal, No, 878, sued on the same date, Dr. Wiliam XK. Gregory published a detail-comparison of the skulls of the giant panda ite panda with those of various species of bears, dogs and the. racoon, coming to the con~ clusion that the pandas are more closely related to the racoons than they are to the bears or members of the dog (I-e. wolf) family (Canidae), Me even places them in the same family (Procyonidae) as the racoons, but gives them sub-family rank, Ailurinae, Most mammalogists, how-fever, will agree that the pandas should constitute a distinct family, Ailuridae, As regards the matter of how the slant panda came to occupy its pre-Sent habitat of dense bamboo jungle, Mr, Smith is going a long way with= fut any factual foundation when he suggests that long ago its ancestor were driven to seek sheller in the bamboo jungles owing to their inability to defend themselves against such fleece animals as leopards which abound In the mountains of West China, In the frst "place the giant panda had acquired its present charac teristics at least 100,000 years, pos Sibly as much og half a milieu years, ago, that isto say, in the early Pleistocene period, as its fossil remains, closely similar to the present-day form, have been discovered in Lower Pleistocene deposits near Wan-{Wslen in Western Szechuan by Dr. Walter Granger, who with Mr. W. D. Matthews described and named. the fossil form AYuropoda foveal, Tt is much more probable that the ances. tors of the giant panda found them: selves in country almost completely covered with bamboo jungle and that by slow degrees over "an immense period of time (for these things take place only extremely slowly in na~ ure) turned from a carnivorous diet toa diet consisting almost exclusively of bamboo, the food most readily procurable. At the same time their skulls, teeth and intestinal tracts underwent changes to adapt them to this strange diet. The skull developed bony ridges for the attachment of unusual ly powerful muscles to work the Jaws, which themselves became exceptionally heavy and strong, in order to crush and grind to shreds the tough bros of the bamboo plant. The molar teeth became extremely large and broad to help in this grinding Process. Proportionately these teeth fare the largest and broadest molars in any of the Carnivora, The jaws, too, are proportionately far heavier find stronger than in even such carnivores as the grizaly bear, the tiger of the lion. They are more like those of the hyaena, which have been specially, developed for. crushing ones, "Add to this the strong skeletal development of the giant panda and lis Immense muscular strength, and there is no need to suppose. that It would not be a match for any leopard, for all ils gentleness and docility in captivity. It would be a bold leopard, Indeed, which would attack the 200 1b, to'400 1b, of solid bone and muscle which constitute the giant to say nothing of the crushing Power of the latter's jaws, with which it would easily shatter 'a \eopard's spinal column or make mincemeat of paw.
Finally in fatness to Mrs. Ruth Harkness, widow of the-late Mr. William #H. Harkness, who, ineidentally, prior' to his death had been inanoing a joint collecting expedition to West China with Mr. Smith, I would like to state that as far as T can gather from independent evidence offered by. foreigners who have visited the same area since Mrs. 'Harkness' visit, her story of how she [secured the now famous baby giant panda which she took with her to America is essentially true. She did not apparently enter what Mr. Smith, /by what right it is hard to understand, calls his territory, but hunted in. country not previously visited foreign explorer, a fact which I have-on the authority of a young foreigner who later visited the same area. It is conceivable that she em-[ployed hunters who had previously been employed by Mr. Smith. There #re, not foo many good uriters these out of the way places in China, fand, in view of the fact that Mr. [Smith has been visiting and collecting that area for the past ten or more J years, it would probably be dificult to engage a hunter who had not at some time or other been employed by him. But that would not give him any claim over the men, nor does his having hunted and collected in that general area for so many years give him the right to claim any part of it as his territory, in which other Western collectors and hunters mist not, trespass.
"That Mrs. Harkness, a mere woman, succeeded where many men had failed was a feat greatly to her credit, but it must have been rather bitter pill for some of the male hunters "and explorers who had missed this big prize of the Chinese Tibetan borderland.
Personally, I accept Mrs. Harkness' story, vouched for by at least two trustworthy witnesses, and am glad to give her the fullest possible credit for accom-pushing something which itis doubtful if any mere man could have done, for that baby panda needed the tender care and nursing that a human infant needs in order to get it alive to the coast and across the sea. to America, I maintain that only a woman has the "necessary devotion, patience and understanding of infants that were required in this case, T think in fairness to Mrs. Harkness these facts should be known, and that she should receive the credit which is due Mr. Smith's original announcement that contrary to her agreement with him, she had gone, probably unwittingly, into his terri tory, and purchased the live baby panda from his hunters, an announce~ ment allegedly based on letters received from his native hunters, has Tead to such statements in the world's press, especially that of the United (States, as that Mrs. Harkness stole /Mr. Smith's panda; that she did not find the baby panda as she said she id, but purchased it from the native hunters without herself going into the wilds at all, and so on and so forth.
"The same press has credited Mrs. JHarkness with having received as much as U.S-$25,000 "for her panda: but ina recent letter from Mrs. Harkness "herself she says she received U.S.$9,760. This she is using for another expedition to West China, being due back in Shanghai on August 10 next.
Antuun po C, Sowrasy.
Shanghai, July 26.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.