34
THROUGH HISTORICAL RECORDS AND ANCIENT WRITINGS IN SEARCH OF THE GIANT PANDA*
Père David's discovery
WEI PER TI
In 1869, the western world was regaled with the glad tidings that a heretofore unknown animal had been found in China. It was not exactly running to ground the legendary unicorn, but still joyful news indeed to the handful of scientists who had been anxious to locate concrete evidence of this elusive animal, reputed to be roaming the dense bamboo jungles in the mountains of southwestern China.
L'Abbé Armand David, a French naturalist and missionary, known to his colleagues simply as Père David, was given the pelt of a large, predominantly white mammal by hunters of southwestern China who had called it a white bear, (baixiong). This pelt, "du fameux ours blanc et noir", was dispatched post-haste to Paris, where it was subsequently identified as that of a new species, ailuropoda melanoleusa, literally black and white panda foot. The animal was called the giant panda in English, to distinguish it from the smaller and reddish-coloured lesser panda, ailurus fulgens styani (Thomas).
It was clear from Père David's diary that he himself had never seen a live panda, only the pelt of the animal
Panda hunts
The final decades of the nineteenth century and early years of the twentieth witnessed adventurers pressing into the wilds of Africa and Asia. American and European explorers were interested in hunting
* Grateful thanks are due Joyce Wu Tong of the Sinological Institute of the University of Leiden who has made it possible for me to research this article while ensconced in the deserts of the Middle East. I would also like to thank Linda L. Reichert, Reference Librarian of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, for making available copies of the museum's journal of the 1930s through my good friend Anne Phipps Sidamon-Eristoff, Vice-President of the museum.
34
THROUGH HISTORICAL RECORDS AND ANCIENT WRITINGS IN SEARCH OF THE GIANT PANADA*
Père David's discovery
WEI PER TI
In 1869, the western world was regaled with the glad tidings that a heretofore unknown animal had been found in China. It was not exactly running to ground the legendary unicorn, but still joyful news indeed to the handful of scientists who had been anxious to locate concrete evidence of this elusive animal, reputed to be roaming the dense bamboo jungles in the mountains of southwestern China.
L'Abbé Armand David, a French naturalist and missionary, known to his colleagues simply as Père David, was given the pelt of a large. predominantly white mammal by hunters of southwestern China who had called it a white bear, (baixiong). This pelt, "du fameux ours blanc et noir", was dispatched post-haste to Paris, where it was subsequently indentified as that of a new species, ailuropoda melanoleusa, literally black and white panda foot. The animal was called the giant panda in English, to distinguish it from the smaller and reddish-coloured lesser panda, ailurus fulgens styani (Thomas).
It was clear from Père David's diary that he himself had never seen a live panda, only the pelt of the animal
Panda hums
The final decades of the nineteenth century and carly years of the twentieth witnessed adventurers pressing into the wilds of Africa and Asia. American and European explorers were interested in hunting
* Grateful thanks are due Joyce Wu Tong of the Sinological Institute of the University. of Leiden who has made it possible for me to research this article while ensconced in the deserts of the Middle East. I would also like to thank Linda L. Reichert. Reference Librarian of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, for making available copies. of the museum's journal of the 1930s through my good friend Anne Phipps Sidamon-Eristoff. Vice-President of the museum.
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