A RARE ANIMAL.

Franklin Times, Volume XIX, Issue 93, 12 August 1929, Page 8

A RARE ANIMAL.

THE GIANT PANDA.

Announcement that the first giant

panda ever shot by a white man is

being brought to America from • Asia i has stirred interest-in an animal about ! which little is known, says the “New . York Times.” The panda in question was bagged on the borders of Tibet by Theodore and Kermit Roosevelt, who have been collecting speciments of big game in Asian mountains for the Field j Museum in Chicago. Kermit Roose- | veil is now' on his way to the United j States, bringing w'ith him the skeleton and skin of the rare find. J Considered a sacred beast by the ; inhabitants of its native haunts, the ‘panda has never been. the prey of ! hunters. It lives in the jungles of ! Northern Asia, and in isolated Tibet, lands still relatively unknown to the ; European. According to 'authorities ! at the American Museum of Natural

History, the animal is extremely shy , and is almost impossible to see in the . bamboo forests of its habitat. A specimen of the giant panda, said to be the only one in America, stands in the Hall of Mammals on the third floor of the American Museum. It was obtained from the missionary, Joseph Milner, w'ho brought it -back from China with other commercial skins more than ten years ago.

The mounted animal is about the size of a black bear, w'ith white face, small black ears, and black nose. It has a white back and reddish browm | feet or paws.lts markings are regular, and its fbr heavy. White fur in saddle blanket pattern adorns its broad back, a pattern extending to the tip of its white tail. The front feet ( are dark brown with brownish red fur _ running up to a sharp' point on the shoulders. Museum authorities say that the Roosevelt find will be of peculiar value to scientists, as the skeleton of the animal will provide an opportunity for first-hand investigation not heretofore possible. No skeleton accompanied , the panda skin now in the possession of the American Museum. x\bout the only - data concerning the pandji, and this is meagre, was supplied by Father David, a French missionary. Father David discovered the animal in the mountains of Moupin, eastern Tibet, in 1869. It is said to be a distant relative of the racoon, though most authorities held the resemblance to be remote. It is more bearlike in appearance than in habits.