Alice Boring made good use of her time on long leave in 1928-29. From correspondence with the leading American herpetologists of the day and by working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York she had, by the time she sailed back to China, compiled a checklist of amphibians from all parts of China. The checklist was published with Nathaniel Gist Gee (1876-1937)*. According to her biography she was instilled with what was then the American way of doing taxonomy: collecting a wide range of specimens over a wide area in order to determine the degree of variation within and between species. She established a network of people who sent her specimens as well as sending students and collectors on collecting trips to various parts of China. Because museums depend on access to specimens she sent and exchanged amphibians for study
Geoffrey Herklots at the University of Hong Kong, was, to go right back to the opening paragraph of Part 1, part of that network that existed throughout China and to the U.S.A. He sent collections of frogs to Peking for her to identify. In turn she published the findings in Hong Kong Naturalist.
Boring was a founder member of the Peking Natural History Society and it was in the the Society’s bulletin and a handbook that she published most of her work. However, it was not all taxonomy as some biographers have implied. One paper was on Bidder’s organ while another was on seasonal changes in the reproductive organs of frogs and toads, both continuing the sort of work she was doing in Maine before she left for China.
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| Liu Cheng Chou from Contributions to the History of Herpetology |
Boring’s major legacy was a student Liu Cheng Chao (1900-1976). Not officially her student, Alice Boring provided advice and encouragement for Liu’s interest in amphibians at Yenching. After graduation, Liu lost his herpetological papers and books in 1931 when forced to leave Northeastern University at Mukden when the Japanese moved in. Boring took great trouble in arranging for him to study for a Ph.D. in the U.S.A. funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. He went to Cornell to work with Albert Hazen Wright (1879-1970). Back in China, Liu was first at Suzhou University but the Japanese advance took him to Chengdu in Sichuan and the West China Union University. It was from there that he made 11 long field trips to the hills and mountains on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau. On one he was seriously ill with typhus fever. In September 1946 Liu returned to the U.S.A. and was based at what was then called the Chicago Natural History Museum, now the Field Museum of Natural History.
Liu was with some big names of classical herpetology in Chicago: Karl P. Schmidt, Clifford H. Pope and Robert F. Inger. Pope, of course, had travelled extensively in China and written a book on the reptiles. During his year there Liu wrote his major work Amphibians of Western China. Much more than a catalogue of amphibians it describes the field trips, the peoples he encountered and the geography. He discusses the adaptations of adults and tadpoles in relation to habitat as well as the history and cultural significance of the various species. It is not surprising that after this tour-de-force Liu was described as China’s most prominent herpetologist.
By the time Amphibians of Western China was published in 1950 (Liu’s Preface was dated 1 November 1948) he had returned to Yenching University as head of department. In 1951 he moved to Chengdu as President of Sichuan Medical College. He became a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He and his wife Hu Shu Chin (Shu-qin) (1914-1992) later published Chinese Tailless Amphibians in 1961.
Liu acknowledge the part Boring had played in his career in Amphibians of Western China:
My former teacher at Yenching University, Dr. Alice M. Boring, has my grateful remembrance for her continued encouragement and help during the war years.
In 1945 Liu named a spectacular amphibian, Vibrissaphora (now Leptobrachium) boringii in Alice Boring’s honour. This species is known as the Emei Moustache Toad because the males in the breeding season have sharp tubercles around the upper lip. These spines are used in defence of their nests. A frog full of vim and vigour named for a ‘dame full of vim and vigor’. And, surely, it should have the common name, Boring’s Toad?
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| A plate from Liu's book showing the species named for Alice Boring I have added a red arrow to show the sharp tubercles |
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| Another plate from Amphibians of Western China |
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| A modern photograph of Boring's Toad from Hudson & Fu 2013 |
*Yenching University had, incidentally, originally lined Gee up for Boring’s job when he was free to take it. That is why she was only offered a two-year appointment.
Anon. 2014. Boring, Alice M. In Contributions to the History of Herpetology (Volume 1, revised and expanded), Edited by Kraig Adler, pp 107-108. Society for the Study of Reptiles and Amphibians.
Anon. 2007. Hu, Shu-qin (1914-1992). In Contributions to the History of Herpetology (Volume 2,), Edited by Kraig Adler, pp 207-208. Society for the Study of Reptiles and Amphibians.
Anon. 2014. Liu, Cheng-chao (1900-1976). In Contributions to the History of Herpetology (Volume 1, revised and expanded), Edited by Kraig Adler, pp 123-124. Society for the Study of Reptiles and Amphibians.
Fu L. 2017. Nathaniel Gist Gee’s contribution to biology in modern China. Protein & Cell 8, 237-239 DOI 10.1007/s13238-016-0318-x
Hudson, CM, Fu, J. 2013. Male-biased sexual size dimorphism, resource defense polygyny, and multiple paternity in the Emei Moustache Toad (Leptobrachium boringii). PLoS ONE 8(6): e67502. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0067502
Liu C-C. 1950. Amphibians of Western China. Fieldiana: Zoology Memoirs Volume 2. Chicago: Chicago Natural History Museum
Ogilvie MB, Choquette CJ, 1999. A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor: a Biography of Alice Middleton Boring: biologist in China. Amsterdam: Harwood.
Zheng. 2015. Alice M. Boring: a pioneer in the study of Chinese amphibians and reptiles. Protein & Cell 6, 625-627 DOI 10.1007/s13238-015-0165-1
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