We camped in a clearing just at the edge of the forest. While the tents were being pitched, I set a line of traps along the base of the opposite mountain and found a "runway" under almost every log. About eight o'clock I ran my traps and, with the aid of a lantern, stumbled about in the bushes and high grass, over logs and into holes. When I emptied my pockets there were fifteen mice, rats, shrews, and voles, representing seven species and all new to our collection. Heller brought in eight specimens and added two new species. We forthwith decided to stay right where we were until this "gold mine" had been exhausted.
In the morning our traps were full of mammals and sixty-two were laid out on the table ready for skinning. The length, tail, hind foot, and ear of each specimen was first carefully measured in millimeters and recorded in the field catalogue and upon a printed label bearing our serial number; then an incision was made in the belly, the skin stripped off, poisoned with arsenic, stuffed with cotton, and sewed up. The animal was then pinned in position by the feet, nose, and tail in a shallow wooden tray which fitted in the collecting trunk.
The specimens were put in the sun on every bright day until they were thoroughly dry and could be wrapped in cotton and packed in water-tight trunks or boxes. We have found that the regulation U. S. Army officer's fiber trunk makes an ideal collecting case. It measures thirty inches long by thirteen deep and sixteen inches wide and will remain quite dry in an ordinary rain but, of course, must not be allowed to stand in water. The skulls of all specimens, and the skeletons of some, are numbered like the skin, strung upon a wire, and dried in the sun. Also individuals of every species are injected and preserved in formalin for future anatomical study.
Larger specimens are always salted and dried. As soon as the skin has been removed and cleaned of flesh and fat, salt is rubbed into every part of it and the hide rolled up. In the morning it is unwrapped, the water which has been extracted by the salt poured off, and the skin hung over a rope or a tree branch to dry. If it is not too hot and the air is dry, the skin may be kept in the shade to good advantage, but under ordinary field conditions it should be placed in the sun. Before it becomes too hard, the hide is rolled or folded into a convenient package hair side in, tied into shape and allowed to become "bone dry." In this condition it will keep indefinitely but requires constant watching, for the salt absorbs moisture from the air and alternate wetting and drying is fatal.
We soon trained two of our Chinese boys to skin both large and small animals and they became quite expert. They required constant watching, however, and after each hide had been salted either Mr. Heller or I examined it to make sure that it was properly treated.
On our first day in camp we sent for natives to the village of Mu-cheng ten li distant. The men assured us that there were sambur, serow, and muntjac in the neighborhood, and they agreed to hunt. They had no dogs and were armed with crossbows, antiquated guns, and bows and arrows, but they showed us the skins of two sambur in proof of their ability to secure game.
Like most of the other natives, with the exception of the Mosos on the Snow Mountain, these men had no definite plan in hunting. The first day I went out with them they indicated that we were to drive a hill not far from camp. Without giving me an opportunity to reach a position in front of them, they began to work up the hill, and I had a fleeting glimpse of a sambur silhouetted against the sky as it dashed over the summit.
Two days later while I was out with ten other men who had a fairly good pack of dogs, the first party succeeded in killing a female sambur. The animal weighed at least five hundred pounds but they brought it to our camp and we purchased the skin for ten rupees. South of Gen-kang the money of the region, like all of Yün-nan for some distance from the Burma frontier, is the Indian rupee which equals thirty-three cents American gold in that part of the province adjoining Tonking, French Indo-China money is current.
My Journal of February 8 tells of our life at this camp, which we called "Good Hope."
The weather is delightful for the sun is just warm enough for comfort and the nights are clear and cold. How we do sleep! It seems hardly an hour from the time we go to bed until we hear Wu rousing the servants, and the crackle of the camp-fire outside the tent. We half dress in our sleeping bags and with chattering teeth dash for the fire to lace our high boots in its comfortable warmth.