Although a very powerful animal with strong teeth and claws, the panda has a quiet end gentle disposition, and becomes very tame and docile in captivity, being as playful as a kitten, and full of amusing tricks.
So far only three living specimens have been brought away from Szechuen, the first baby specimen, amed Ssu-lin, which Mrs. Harkness ecuted in 1936, and which is now n the Zoo in Chicago. the adult emale secured by Mr. F. T. Smith n the early summer of 1937, which died on its way to London, and the second specimen, named Diana, brought recently to Shanghai by Mrs, Harkness, und due to leave China for the U.S. in the near future.
How common the giant panda is. it is difficult to say, but consensus of opinion amongst those who have hunted it in its natural haunts on he Chinese-Tibetan border seems to se that it is comparatively rare even in those wild mountainous areas.
Very little is as yet known of the giant panda's habits, Mating is said to take. place in the spring, the young being born in late summer or carly autumn. Only one young one is born at a time, and the natives ssy that two years elapses before the mother panda has another young one.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.