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Where are the twelve cubic inches of earth that represent the average volume of the original contents of the shaft? There is not a trace of this material outside, nor inside either. And how, in a soil as dry as a cinder, is the plaster made with which the walls are covered? Larvæ which burrow in wood, such as those of Capricornis and Buprestes, will apparently answer our first question.
Caldwell represent the white-maned serow Capricornis sumatrensis argyrochaetes and one which I shot in May, 1917, near Teng-yueh, not far from the Burma frontier, is apparently an undescribed form.
As with the larvæ of Capricornis and Buprestes, it is enough for the traveller to have around it the small amount of free space necessitated by its movements. Moist, soft, and easily compressible soil is to the larva of the Cigale what digested wood-pulp is to the others. It is compressed without difficulty, and so leaves a vacant space.
"The gipsy who night and day for seven months goes to and fro with her brats upon her back" is the Lycosa, the Tarantula with the black stomach, the great spider of the wastes. The larva of the great Capricornis, which gnaws the interior of old oak- trees, "leaving behind it, in the form of dry-rot, the refuse of its digestive processes," is "a scrap of intestine which eats its way as it goes."
The larvæ of the Buprestis and the Capricornis, which burrow in the trunks of trees, are similarly shaped. Directly it issues from the egg the wriggling creature makes off at random with an activity we should hardly expect in one so young. It wanders hither and thither, eager to find food and shelter as soon as possible. Within twenty-four hours it has usually attained both.
Chinese serows usually have the lower legs rusty red, while in Indian races they are whitish, and black in the southern Burma and Malayan forms. The serows which we killed upon the Snow Mountain can probably be referred to Capricornis sumatrensis milne-edwardsi, those of Fukien obtained by Mr.
The specific relationships of the serows are by no means satisfactorily determined. Mr. Pocock, Superintendent of the London Zoölogical Society's Gardens, has recently devoted considerable study to the serows of British India and considers them all to be races of the single species Capricornis sumatrensis.
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