RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1961
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/vd6724704
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Hong Kong Branch

RASHKB and author

Vol. 1 (1961)

ISSN 1991-7295

3

THE NORTH CHINA BRANCH started in Shanghai in 1857 under the name of the Shanghai Literary and Scientific Society. Its first President was the Rev. E. C. Bridgman, D.D., the first American missionary in China and the founder and manager of the Chinese Repository. Its first Journal appeared in 1858 in the name of the Literary and Scientific Society, but in that year the Society became affiliated to the Royal Asiatic Society as its North China Branch. Except for a brief period between 1861, when Dr. Bridgman died, and 1864 when the Society was reanimated through the unremitting efforts of Sir Harry Parkes as President, the Society maintained for nearly 85 years—until the outbreak of the second world war in December 1941—almost an unbroken vigour and a high reputation as the principal centre of Oriental culture among the foreign and Chinese communities in Central China. It also kept up a high standard of scholarship and of cultural appeal in its Journal, which appeared unfailingly every year. After the war it continued its work until, after 1948, it was forced through political troubles to cease its activities. The last issues of the Journal had been published with the co-operation of the International Institute of China.

The Society in Shanghai was from its early days fortunate in the support of a generous public and of the British Government, which in 1868 provided it with a site at a nominal rent for its own building, completed in 1871. Later the property was conveyed to the Society in perpetuity or for so long as it was used for the Society's purpose. Thus, in 1931 the Society was able, with the aid of public subscriptions and generous municipal grants, to build in Museum Road close to the British Consulate a commodious building of its own; it contained a lecture hall named after the late Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a floor to accommodate its Oriental Library of 12,000 volumes and adjacent reading rooms, as well as space for an excellent natural history museum and for the exhibition of Chinese paintings and other works of art.

In 1941 the Society had nearly 800 members, including most of the leading Oriental scholars, explorers and travellers. Amongst the outstanding personalities who had been associated with the North China Branch a few may be mentioned—Dr. Joseph Edkins, Thomas W. Kingsmill, Dr. Emil Breitschneider, Henri Cordier (at one time the Society's Librarian), P. G. van Mollendorf, Sir Robert Hart, Sir Harry Parkes, Sir Byron Brennan, W. H. Medhurst, Sir Edmund Hornby (the first British Judge in China), Sir Rutherford Alcock, H. A. Giles, G. H. Parker, H. B. Morse, A. P. Parker, Alexander Hosie, Samuel Couling, Sir Sidney Barton and Dr. J. C. Ferguson, an American, former President of Nanking University and a man of profound learning and wisdom who, in the course of half a century, served the Society as President, Secretary and Editor of the Journal.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1965
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653
18

S. G. DAVIS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Bard, S. M., Chiu, T. N., and So, C. L. "Stone Ring at Loh Ah Tsai, Lamma Island, Hong Kong," Asian Perspectives, VIII.

2. Ch'en Kung-che (1957). "Archaeological Surveys and Excavations at Hong Kong," Kao Koo Hsueh Po, No. 4.

3. Davis, S. G. (1952). The Geology of Hong Kong (Archaeology), Government Printers, Chapter XI, pp. 188-194.

4. Davis, S. G. and Tregear, M. (1961). "Man Kok Tsui. Archaeological Site, 30, Lantau Island, Hong Kong," Asian Perspectives, IV.

5. Davis, S. G. (1962). "Hong Kong University Team Archaeological Activities for Period 1958-61," Asian Perspectives, V, 53.

6. Davis, S. G. (1964). "Rock Carvings at Shek Pik, Lantau Island, Hong Kong," Asian Perspectives, VII, 19-21.

7. Finn, D. J. (1933-1936). "Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island, Hong Kong," The Hong Kong Naturalist, Reprinted 1958, Ricci Hall Publications, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

8. Heanley, C. M. (1928). "Hong Kong Celts," Bull. Geol. Soc. of China, VII, 209-214.

9. Heanley, C. M. and Shellshear, J. L. (1932). A Contribution to the Prehistory of Hong Kong and the New Territories.

10. Heanley, C. M. (1935). "Fields of Hong Kong," The Hong Kong Naturalist, VI, 233-239.

11. Heanley, C. M. (1938). "Letter to the Editor on Archaeological Finds in Hoifung," The Hong Kong Naturalist, IX.

12. Laufer, B. (1909). Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty, American Museum of Natural History Publication, East Asiatic Committee.

13. Laufer, B. (1914). Chinese Clay Figures, Part I, Chicago Field Museum of Natural History, Publication 154.

14. Laufer, B. (1917). The Beginnings of Porcelain in China, Field Museum of Natural History, Publication 192, Anthropological Series, XV, No. 2.

15. Lo, H. L. (1956). "The Sung Wong Toi and the Location of the Travelling Courts by the Seashore in the Last Day of the Sung," Journal of Oriental Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, 185-217.

16. Maglioni, R. (1938). "Archaeological Finds in Hoifung District, China," The Hong Kong Naturalist, No. 8, 208-214.

17. Maglioni, R. (1940). "Archaeology: New Nomenclature," The Hong Kong Naturalist, X, No. 2, 130-133.

18. Maglioni, R. (1940). "Some Aspects of South China Archaeological Finds," Proceedings of the Third Congress of Prehistorians of the Far East, Singapore, 209-229.

19. Maglioni, R. (1952). "Archaeology in South China," Journal of East Asiatic Studies, No. 2, University of Manila, Philippine Islands, 1-20.

20. Meanelly, E. (1962). "Excavations at Man Kok Tsui on Lantau Island," Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 2, 103-108.

21. Schofield, W. (1935). "Implements of Palaeolithic Type in Hong Kong," The Hong Kong Naturalist, VI, Nos. 3-4, 272-275.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1967
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/0c488p70g
18

PATRICIA MARSHALL

There is plenty of cover in these places for deer and civet cats. There are also a number of exotic wild birds, that would increase if left unmolested. The Sai Kung peninsula and the area above Plover Cove are also beautiful areas which it is hoped will never be used for building. It is for the people of Hong Kong to act in a responsible manner to themselves and to future generations to ensure that a little of the natural beauty and at least some of the native mammals of Hong Kong are conserved.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

REFERENCES

Allen, G. M. (1938) The Mammals of China and Mongolia published by American Museum of Natural History, New York.

Balfour, S. F. (1940-1941) “Hong Kong before the British”, Tien Hsia Vol. XI, No. 4 pp. 330-352 and No. 5 pp. 440-464.

Grant, C. J. (1962) The Soils and Agriculture of Hong Kong. published by the Hong Kong Government Printer, pp 136-138.

Herklots, G. A. C. (1951) The Hong Kong Countryside, printed by the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong.

Marshall P. M. and Phillips, J. G. (1965) "Plans for Conserving the Wild life of Hong Kong," "Oryx” (Journal of the Fauna Preservation Society) Vol. VIII No. 2 pp 107-112.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1973
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r
18

H. A. RYDINGS

arrangements can be made for the Society's house) one, and the same building.” Amongst the reasons which he adduced for this was that the former Governor, Sir Henry Pottinger, had reserved a plot of land "between the Chinese Hospital [where Hobson worked] and the Gap" for an object of this kind. A special meeting was called on 8th July (14) to consider Dr. Hobson's proposal; two supporting resolutions were unanimously adopted, and the Society expressed its gratitude to Dr. Hobson for the zeal and ability with which he had performed his duties as Secretary, and its regret on his forthcoming departure.

As befits a medical missionary, Dr. Hobson believed in actions as well as words. The Chinese Hospital where Hobson worked, as already mentioned, was moved in 1843 from Macao to the vicinity of Morrison Hill in Hong Kong, and was thus close to the Morrison Education Society's school, from which Hobson attracted pupils to further studies in scientific and medical fields (15). In this he was following a practice established by Dr. Peter Parker, the first American medical missionary who started an ophthalmic hospital in Canton in 1835. Of Hobson it is said that the attention which he gave "to the education of young men as his assistants was amply repaid in the benefit derived from their intelligence. Some of those under his care were able to perform various operations, and one, more especially, had acquired so great an amount of professional skill that some of the European surgeons of the Colony of Hong Kong, by whom he was examined, expressed their admiration of his training" (16). These efforts may be considered the beginnings of medical education in China and Hong Kong, though it was not until 1887 that Hobson's vision of a College of Medicine for Chinese in Hong Kong was fulfilled, long after his death, and many years later than the establishment of other medical schools in China.

The idea of a medical school was linked quite sensibly in the minds of the members of the Medico-Chirurgical Society with that of their own premises, in which could be kept a museum for specimens of natural history and morbid anatomy, and their library of medical textbooks and journals. The problem of obtaining suitable premises seems to have dogged both the immediate and the latter-day successors of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (for which however it was solved by provision of a room in the Court House, presumably through the
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1977
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/np198x23n
234

NOTES AND QUERIES

mountains about Kuatun and Sanchiang.... It is secretive, hiding by day in the beds of the streams and apparently prowling by night." The only other record of the distribution of this species of which I am aware lists it for both Fukien and Chekiang (Anon., 1977).

Doubtless the specimen found in a catchment channel near Shek Kong had been carried down with water collected from a stream at a higher altitude, most likely from Tai Mo Shan.

REFERENCES

Anonymous (Compiled by the Amphibians and Reptiles Research Department of The Biological Research Institute of Szechwan Province)

1977 Systematic Keys to China's Reptiles. (In Chinese) Press, Peking.

Boulenger, G. A.

1912 A Vertebrate Fauna of the Malay Peninsula. Reptilia and Batrachia. Taylor and Francis, London.

Pope, C. H.

1935 The Reptiles of China. Natural History of Central Asia, Vol. 10. The American Museum of Natural History, New York.

Smith, M. A.

1935 Sauria. Reptilia and Amphibia, Vol. 2. The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Taylor and Francis, London.

Hong Kong, 20 July 1978

J. D. ROMER

THE PUBLIC BOTANIC GARDEN OF HONG KONG

Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong Kong from April 1854 to May 1859, was a Governor with wide interests. In his History of Hong Kong, George Endacott relates (pp. 104-105):

He cared for cultural things; he set up a museum in one of the rooms of the Supreme Court to the annoyance of the court officials, and he was the leader of the local branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. He was also very keen to set up a public Botanic Garden, and lectured to the Royal Asiatic Society in Hong Kong on its value in spreading knowledge of Chinese trees, woods and fibres.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1986
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063
125

Between 1917 and 1923, membership doubled owing mainly to acceptance of the Protestant faith among the Miao tribesmen (La-Tourette, 1929).

In addition to attracting businessmen, diplomats and missionaries, the unknown interior also coaxed several academics to make pilgrimages to the "Shore of Pearls". The most important of these for the natural sciences was undertaken by F.A. McClure, an American botanist teaching at Lingnan Agricultural College, who was commissioned to explore the land resources of Hainan, and if possible, conquer the summit of the rugged Five Finger Range: a feat which had eluded earlier European attempts (McClure, 1922). His first assault on the summit failed, but on April 20, 1922, his second push brought him through the dense undergrowth to the ceiling of the island (McClure, 1922). The important discoveries he made on these and subsequent expeditions to Hainan (1927, 1928, 1929, 1932) form the basis of a great collection of rare plants housed in Guangzhou (Fenzel, 1933), the New York Botanical Gardens, and for some specimens, the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University (Merrill and Medcalf, 1937).

A zoological expedition, led by Clifford Pope of the American Museum of Natural History, went to Hainan in 1922 (Pope, 1924), while in 1928 the French missionary and ethnographer, M. Savina, studied in detail the language of the Li clans for the first time (Savina, 1929). The German, Gottlieb Fenzel, who journeyed through the interior in 1929 made a significant contribution to the geology and geography of Hainan (Fenzel, 1933), and his fellow countryman, H. Stubel, provided further information on the ethnology of Hainan's aboriginals from his visits in 1931 and 1932 (Stubel and Li, 1933; Stubel and Meriggi, 1937). These published reports by foreign academics provide the bulk of the information on Hainan readily accessible to the western bloc.

Civil War and Japanese occupation

In 1912, the Manchu dynasty came to an end with the abdication of the young Emperor, Hsuan-t’ung, and the New Republic was declared the constitutional form of state. However, efforts by the weak central government to create unity were sabotaged
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
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.
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
35

animals as trophies, not in conservation of wildlife. As a result, concerted efforts were made to hunt giant panda in the Chinese mountains as big game was hunted in Africa.

The Roosevelt brothers

The first successful expedition to shoot a giant panda in its natural habitat was sponsored by the Field Museum of Chicago in 1928. Kermit and Theodore Roosevelt, sons of the irrepressible Teddy, undertook the task to "collect the strange raccoon bears in the mountains of Yunnan and Sichuan". It was a journey troubled by hostile weather, and equally treacherous terrain, further disturbed by intermittent encounters with marauding bandits. Local officials proved to be singularly unhelpful. Information provided by the populace turned out to be unreliable as well. The expedition gave credit to members of a local semi-agrarian Tibeto-Burman tribal people, the Lo-lo, for leading them to their prey on April 13, 1928.

On that day, the men had followed tracks on snow for three hours, finally detecting a giant panda asleep in a fir tree. Kermit Roosevelt wrote in an article in the Journal of the American Museum of Natural History:

'Three hours' trailing through dense jungle brought us to the spot which (the giant panda) had selected for his siesta. We (Kermit and Theodore) caught sight of him emerging from the hollow bole of a giant fir tree, and fired simultaneously.

Their prize, the pelt of this giant panda, the first ever of the species to be shot by outsiders, was put on exhibition at the Field Museum. The Roosevelt brothers were hailed as innovative explorers who had contributed greatly to the advancement of zoological knowledge”.

Thereafter, similar expeditions sponsored by other learned institutions were launched.

The Sage expedition

In 1934, an expedition was sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Led by Dean Sage Jr., the expedition
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1988
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ft84gb83q
43

Harkness. Ruth, The Baby Giant Panda, New York: Garrick and Evans, 1938.

1

Hu Jin Chu, "Daxiongmao kao” [On giant pandas], Sichuan Kejibo 24 (Sichuan Journal of Science and Technology) 103 (3 July, 1980).

Kang Chingliang and Bi Fengzho, "Wolong qu-wen" (Interesting tidbits from Wolong), Sichuan Linyebao (Sichuan Forestry Ministry News), 254, 255, 256, (22, 25, 29 October, 1980).

Morris, Romona and Desmond, The Giant Panda (1966), revised by Jonathan Barzdo, London: Macmillan, 1981.

Pei Wenzhong, "Daxiongmao fazhan jianshi” (An outline of the development of the giant panda), Acta Zoologica Sinica 20:2:188-190 (June, 1974)

Roosevelt, Kermit, "The Search of the Giant Panda“, Journal of American Museum of Natural History XXX:3-6 (New York, 1930).

Sage, Dean Jr., "In Quest of the Giant Panda”, Journal of American Museum of Natural History XXXV:309-320 (New York, 1935).

Sung edition of the Thirteen Classics, 1816 edition.

Synthesis of Books and Illustrations of Ancient and Modern Times, first printed in 1722.

Sowerby, Arthur de C., "The Pandas or Cat Bears", China Journal of Science and Arts 17:6:296-299 (Shanghai, 1932).

"Hunting the Giant Panda", China Journal of Science and Arts 21:30-32 (Shanghai, 1934).

"A Baby Panda Comes to Town", China Journal of Science and Arts 25:6:335-330 (Shanghai, 1936).

+

Wang Tsiang-ke, "Guanyu daxiongmao zong di huafeng, dishe fengbu jichi yenhua lishe di tantao" (On the Taxonomic Status of Species, Geological Distribution and Evolutionary History of Ailuropoda), Acta Zoologica Sinica 20:2:191-201 (June, 1974)

+

Zhu Jing and Long Zhi, "Daxiongmao di xingshuai" (“The Vicissitudes of the Giant Panda"), Acta Zoologica Sinica 29:1:93-104 (March, 1983).
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1994
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g
Roc, A S, China As I Saw It, London Hutchinson, 1910

Romer, Charles Frederick, Foreign Investments in China, New York Macmillan, 1933

Roosevelt, Kermit, The Search of the Giant Panda, Journal of American Museum of Natural History XXX 33-16(1930)

Ross, Edward Alsworth, The Changing Chinese, The Conflict of Oriental and Western Cultures in China (Taipei Reprint Ch'eng-wen Publishing)

Rowbottom, Arnold H, Mission and Mandarins, the Jesuits at the Court of China, Berkley, University of California Press, 1942

Roy, Jules, Journey Through China, London Faber, 1967

Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of Hong Kong Branch

Royal Asiatic Society, Journal of North China Branch

Quested, R. K.I., The Expansion of Russia in East Asia 1857-1860, Kuala Lumpur University of Malaya Press, 1968

Saeki, P Y, The Nestorian Monument and Relics in China, Tokyo. Toho Bunkwa Gakuin, 1937

Scidmore, Eliza Ruhamah, Westward to the Far East, a Guide to the Principal Cities of China and Japan, Montreal Canadian Pacific Railroad, 1894

Scott, Roderick, Fukien Christian University. Historical Sketch, New York United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1954

Sebes, Joseph S.J., The Jesuits and the Sino-Russian Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689), Rome Institutum Historicum S.I., 1961

Sewell, William Gowan, The People of Wheelbarrow Lane Chengtu 1931-41, London Alfred and Unwin, 1972

Shaw, Robert, Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand and Kashgar, London John Murray, 1871 (Hong Kong Reprint. Oxford University Press)

Shaw, Samuel (1754-1794), The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the First American Consul at Canton with Life of Author by Joseph Quincy, Boston W Crosby and H P Nichols, 1847

Silverstein, Joseph and Lynn, David Marshall and Jewish Emigration from China, China Quarterly (London 1979)

Sino-Swedish Expedition 1927-1935, Reports from the Scientific Expedition to the North-Western Provinces of China Under the Leadership of Sven Hedin, with 54 folded maps,
================================================================================
RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊 | RAS-1998
https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/1g05n0794
124

school in Chefoo in Shantung province before returning to England where he attended the Bath Art and Technical School. There he studied art before switching to Bristol University to read for a BSc in science. He would appear to have given up his higher education following the shattering of his romantic aspirations when he ran away to sea and worked his passage to Canada. He toiled for a while in Canada before returning to his parents in Taiyuan in 1905 with vague plans to hunt and explore the wild and barren areas of north China; he was twenty at the time. In practice he took up a teaching appointment at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin and only during the vacations was he able to hunt and seek specimens for the natural history museum he was establishing at the college. From the vague evidence available he would appear to have remained at the school for only a matter of a year as he was invited at the end of the final term to join the Duke of Bedford's expedition to collect zoological specimens in Shensi province for the British Museum. Shensi is the neighbouring province to Shansi and lies to its west.

The Duke of Bedford's expedition travelled through Sowerby's home province of Shansi where they lived for a week or so in one of the typical village cave houses of the Yellow Earth country, in a village some fifty miles west of Taiyuan. From there they continued west, across the Yellow River to Yenan in Shensi and on into the Ordos desert. Their return route took them north to the Great Wall, which they then followed to the east before turning south to Taiyuan down the main route through Shansi. The whole expedition took some five months and Arthur Sowerby would have been just twenty-one. It was during this expedition that Sowerby discovered a new species of jerboa [kangaroo rat] which was sent back to the British Museum and subsequently named after him, Dipus sagitta sowerbyi.

Coming from a missionary family he would have had little or no financial support from his father and would have needed to work for a living. He was sponsored for a number of years by a wealthy American, Robert Sterling Clark, who remained a friend for most of Sowerby's life, and although it is no more than supposition he may well have continued teaching at the Anglo-Chinese College in Tientsin especially in view of his marriage in that city in 1910, at the age of twenty-six. The long vacations would have been an advantage enabling him to gather the material he later used in the China Journal, especially his
================================================================================