Beale’s Terrapin or Turtle: An Endangered Species in Hong Kong

The freshwater chelonians, terrapins in English usage and turtles in American, of China and south-east Asia generally are in big trouble. Extensive trade for the human food and ‘medicine’ markets, the pet market, as well as loss of habitat have brought many to the status of ‘Endangered’.

As a result of reading a paper on one of the species in Vietnam I found a video taken recently in Hong Kong of Beale’s Terrapin, Sacalia bealei, where they are very rare and strictly protected. They are nocturnal, occurring in and around mountain streams. The location of sightings is being kept secret because it is thought poaching may still be going on.

Beale’s Terrapin was first described and named by John Edward Gray at the British Museum in 1831. Of the members of the Beale family who worked in India and China, the most likely candidate for the eponym is Thomas Beale (ca 1775-1841) a wealthy merchant in Macau who kept a large collection of exotic birds, including a bird-of-paradise, at his mansion. He with his partners in Magniac & Co (which morphed into the mighty hong, Jardine, Matheson & Co) dealt in opium, cotton and tea. For a time he was immensely wealthy but after dealing in opium futures and investing in some dodgy businesses in Brazil he ended up owing the East India Company the equivalent of many millions of pounds. His body was found washed ashore several weeks after he disappeared from his house.

John Reeves (1774-1856) sent the specimens back to London. He  was working largely in Macau as Inspector of Tea for the East India Company. Gray named Reeves’s Terrapin, Chinemy reevesi, after him, also in the 1831 publication.

The species is sometimes called Beale’s Four-eyed Terrapin because of the eye-like spots on the top of the head. However, since another currently-recognised species from further south in China, Laos and Vietnam, Sacalia quadriocellata, is usually known as the Four-eyed Terrapin, it seems better just to use Beale’s for the species from further north. Just to confuse matters, the two were often considered the same species with the Four-eyed as Sacalia (originally Clemmys) bealei quadriocellata). Both forms have four ‘eye’ spots. Mitochondrial DNA analysis suggests two species but I am not wholly convinced they constitute more than one’ biological species’.

It was not until 1977 that one was found in the wild in Hong Kong, or at least recognised as such, a point I will come back to later.

My mind was taken back to late 1966 or early 1967 when a lecturer in biology at Hong Kong Baptist College brought some terrapins she had bought in a market in Kowloon over on the Star Ferry to HKU. She left them for me to have a good look at. After I returned them she was going to release them somewhere in the New Territories. I know she was keeping a regular eye on the terrapins appearing in the markets and I suspect she rescued more. Unfortunately and infuriatingly, I cannot remember her name and our correspondence has also been lost.

The most interesting species she had acquired were Beale’s Terrapin which we could see seemed to occur in two colour forms. I see that this variation is now ascribed to a difference between the sexes. The male is what was called the ‘pink’ form, with dark brown or black with dark spots and squiggles especially on the leading edge. The neck has pink stripes and the iris of the eye is also pink. The female is the ‘yellow’ form; the carapace is yellowish-brown; the stripes on the neck are yellow, as is the iris.

We photographed the individuals on the roof of the later-demolished Northcote Science Building. Unfortunately I used Agfacolor CT18 film which deteriorates markedly with age. However, I have three photographs which are worth showing here. The ocelli or eye spots can be seen in what is obviously a female—a feisty female. She shot her neck out to bite the rubber gloves my wife had in her hand and was about to put on since she was trying to keep her hands dry while terrapin wrangling. The rubber gloves make an accidental appearance in several photographs at that time since her (wife, not terrapin) hands were suffering the effects of exposure to the histologist’s favourite solvent, xylol (xylene). The ones I photographed were around 13 cm or 5”, not far off the maximum length of about 18 cm.

Beale's Terrapin - male

Same individual as above

Beale's Terrapin - female
Note the 'eye' spots on top of the head

It was impossible to find out if the ones that appeared in the Kowloon market (we never saw this species in Hong Kong Central Market which we kept an eye on if in town) had been caught in Kong Kong or had been brought in from China. Since they had not then been found in the wild in Hong Kong we assumed they had been brought over the border.

More information and modern photographs can be found here.

This is the video I found:

While it is true that the number of people looking for reptiles in Hong Kong increased markedly in the 1970s, with many more species, especially snakes, being found, I cannot help wondering how many Beale’s Terrapins my friend bought in the market and then released. And did others do the same? So is it just within the bounds of possibility that at least some of the Beale’s Terrapins living in Hong Kong are descended from those released individuals? Could there have been an unrecorded but successful re-introduction?

Beolens B, Watkins M, Grayson M. 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

Karsen SJ, Lau M W-N, Bogadek A. 1998. Hong Kong Amphibians and Reptiles. Second Edition. Hong Kong: Provisional Urban Council

Le MD, McCormack TEM, Hoang HV, Duong HT, Nguyen TQ, Ziegler T, Nguyen HD, Ngo HT. 2020. Threats from wildlife trade: The importance of genetic data in safeguarding the endangered Four-eyed Turtle (Sacalia quadriocellata). Nature Conservation 41, 91-111. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.41.54661

Crested Serpent Eagles mobbed by Kites in Hong Kong

AJP reports that while on the island of Lamma last Sunday he heard a noise coming from overhead. A battle was in progress between two Crested Serpent Eagles (Spilornis cheela) and three Black-eared (Black) Kites (Milvus migrans or M. lineatus). Although classed as residents, Crested Serpent Eagles are uncommon in Hong Kong and it was a new tick for him. Although we have seen this species in India and Sri Lanka we have not seen it in Hong Kong.

The eagles are considerably bigger than the kites

Crested Serpent Eagle

Geoffrey Herklots in his book Hong Kong Birds, which mainly records his observations in the 1930s, he indicated the likely fate of many of these birds in earlier years:

A Serpent Eagle was shot in the Lam Tsuen valley in January or February 1940 [Herklots’s records were lost while he was interned during the Japanese Occupation] by a Chinese Farmer. The bird weighed 4 lbs 2½ ounces; it was given to a Chinese friend in Hong Kong who ate it…Both La Touche and Caldwell say that this species has a reputation of preying on domestic poultry and it is probable that this bird was shot by the farmer in defence of his birds.

In the 1960s birds of prey of different sizes were being caught alive in Hong Kong or were being brought over the border from China. They were either for the Chinese medicine or the food market. Enterprising bird dealers brought some to the door of the university’s Zoology Department where they might be bought for release. I photographed this one on the floor of Patricia Marshall’s lab where until it could be released a short time later it was attached by a temporary jess to a lab stool. I wonder if it escaped capture and the live market.

The Crested Serpent Eagle is now protected in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong: What katydid, not What Katy Did

From a Hong Kong garden this week comes a photograph of Elimaea punctifera the Narrow-winged Katydid. This one was around 4" (10 cm) long. Turned the other way its camouflage would have been even more effective.

Hong Kong Cattle: Remnants of a Unique Genetic Lineage?

I have been posting photographs taken in the 1960s on the Facebook Group, Hong Kong in the 1960s. Recently I added several taken on a walk from what was then the town of Tai Po east along the northern shore of Tolo Harbour in the New Territories. The next one in the series is of an ox tethered in the corner of a field but before posting it I realised that I knew nothing of the cattle, other than the dairy cows, of Hong Kong. A Google search found a paper published this year which throws some light on their origin.

A photograph I took in early 1966 near Tai Po in the
New Territories of Hong Kong

In the years up to the 1980s, when Hong Kong had an active agricultural economy, local farmers used cattle and water buffalo as draught animals; a single ox* pulling a plough or parked on the edge of a holding to graze was a common sight throughout the rural areas. They were not kept nor bred for milk or meat. As agriculture virtually died out in the face of a massive building programme, some of the remaining draught animals became feral often to the still-continuing inconvenience and annoyance of the human population as they wander through the country side and country parks, into towns and onto roads. Estimates of the current cattle population exceed 1,200. Official reports described them in the 1960s as ‘local brown cattle’ with local used in the sense of local to south-east China. Other reports describe them as ‘Chinese brown cattle’.

Ploughing paddy fields in Hong Kong in the 1960s
From Rob Taylor's family collection and posted in the Facebook Group:
Hong Kong in the 1960s

Completely separate and isolated populations of cattle also existed until relatively recently. They provided milk for the European population. Not surprisingly, these dairy farms held dairy breeds originally from Europe. In the 1960s, the dairy farms in Hong Kong had mainly Friesians. The study raises interesting points on the history of dairying in Hong Kong but that topic will have to wait for a future article, suffice it to say that what started as a plan by the father of tropical medicine grew into something very big indeed.

Given the presence of dairy cows in Hong Kong for many decades it is not surprising that when the genomes of cattle sampled from the feral Hong Kong population were compared with those of other breeds, evidence of genes from European breeds was found. At some time in the past cattle from the dairy farms must have bred with ‘local’ animals albeit in small numbers.

Another unsurprising finding was that the feral Hong Kong cattle, not having been selectively bred for milk or beef, were genetically diverse. However, the main finding from the research described in the paper was that the population is genetically distinct ‘from other taurine, indicine and crossbred cattle populations’, and showed evidence of a significant contribution of wild bovine species to their genomes.

Given the morphological characteristics of a shoulder hump and a large dewlap, the lack of a match to taurine breeds (essentially breeds derived from the aurochs and referred to as Bos taurus or Bos taurus taurus, of western and northern Eurasia) would be expected. However, the lack of genetic similarity to any breeds of indicine cattle (domesticated from Bos taurus indicus or Bos indicus in southern Asia) does seem more unexpected. The authors of the paper concluded:

We showed that Hong Kong feral cattle, are distinct from Bos taurus and Bos indicus breeds. Our results highlight the distinctiveness of Hong Kong feral cattle and stress the conservation value of this indigenous breed that is likely to harbour adaptive genetic variation, which is a fundamental livestock resource in the face of climate change and diversifying market demands.

There is, as the authors also suggest, the possibility that the Hong Kong cattle represent a separate domestication to that or those which occurred in India, for example, from a wild indicine ancestor at some time in the past.

I have some qualms about this paper. I am unqualified to comment on the molecular genetics but I do wonder if the Hong Kong cattle (minus the small contribution of genes from European dairy animals) are simply representative of a type of beast found throughout south-eastern China as a draught animal. Agricultural practice does not stop at political borders and there was free flow of supplies and livestock between Hong Kong and the ‘mainland’^†. It seems inconceivable to me that the Hong Kong feral cattle are something special to Hong Kong. Surely they are the remnants of a much more widely distributed domestic animal? Are there any draught animals still used in southern China, or any feral populations that could be studied?

This paper then opens the door to further research using additional techniques. The authors end with:

While showing that the H[ongK[ongF[eral] are genetically different from other cattle populations, additional unbiased data, including mtDNA, Y chromosome and whole genome sequences are necessary to better define the origins of the HKF cattle and explore whether they may be traced to an independent domestication event.

Do Hongkongers now have to recognise their pesky feral cattle as a rare breed worthy of preservation both as a cultural memento and as possessing a unique set of genes?

New Territories, Hong Kong, late 1967/early 1968

*I am using ox here in the wide sense, not that of a castrated male used for draught purposes. Other than ox and its plural oxen there is no singular noun in English to describe male and female, young and old cattle.

†In supplementary material published alongside the main paper, the authors appear to be confused not only on the history of agriculture in Hong Kong in the latter half of the 20th century (it went on later than the 1950s, and still does in a very small way) but also on trade. They suggest that the flow of livestock into Hong Kong from mainland China ceased when the UN imposed an embargo in 1951 during the Korean War. That is incorrect. Britain and therefore Hong Kong only imposed a ban on the export to China of militarily strategic goods. Only the U.S.A. imposed an embargo on the import of Chinese goods—one that was maintained until 1972. Goods made in Hong Kong in during that period had a certificate of origin that had to be presented to U.S. customs in order for souvenirs to be imported by returning tourists. Brits in Hong Kong viewed with great amusement the absence of American tourists from stores selling mainland Chinese goods and the efforts of some to get the purchases they did make into the U.S.A.

Barbato M, Reichel MP, Passamonti M, Low WY, Colli L, Tearle R, Williams JL, Marsan PA. 2020 A genetically unique Chinese cattle population shows evidence of common ancestry with wild species when analysed with a reduced ascertainment bias SNP panel. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0231162. https:// doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231162

Fruit bats in a Hong Kong garden—but what are they?

Last week AJP noticed a fruit bat roost in the garden of his flat in Kowloon Tong. The short-nosed fruit bats nibble the stems of palm fronds such that they partially collapse and form a sheltering umbrella under which the bats roost. We read that it is the males who set up such day roosts where they are joined by a harem of usually 1-6 females. So this bat has only been seen with one female—and she is sometimes absent for the day. Reports on bat numbers in the roost are eagerly awaited each day. Will he increase the size of his harem? Is it the same female with him? Who is she with when not in the roost? No soap opera can compete with a roost of fruit bats.

  

All the Hong Kong publications refer to this bat as Cynopterus sphinx, the Greater Short-nosed Fruit Bat. However, when I looked up this species in the final volume of that amazing series Handbook of the Mammals of the World, published at the end of 2019, I found that this species is not shown as occurring in Hong Kong. By contrast, the Lesser Short-nosed Fruit Bat, C. brachyotis, is shown occurring in an isolated patch of Guangdong Province. However, looking at the same distribution map on the IUCN Red List website, that distribution does not extend to Hong Kong. In fact neither species is shown as occurring in Hong Kong!

Partial distribution maps from the IUCN Red List website. Hong Kong is circled in RED

   

So what are the Hong Kong short-nosed fruit bats? Since there is an isolated patch of C. sphinx recorded for the Chinese mainland opposite Taiwan, could there be another patch in Hong Kong, or should the distribution of C. brachyotis be extended a little to the south-east? Given the quantity of literature on the fruit bat of Hong Kong it does seem surprising that little note of them seems to have been taken by those taking an encyclopaedic approach.

The entry for the Lesser in the Handbook does note: ‘Cynopterus brachyotis is often confused with C. sphinx and other species with which it overlaps in many physical dimensions’.

Clearly, more work is needed to put Hong Kong’s fruit bat—a protected species—to be put on the map, literally.

A very short video - look for the white-rimmed ears:

An unusual house gecko in Hong Kong, Gray’s Chinese Gecko

AJP spotted this gecko in his flat at the northern end of Kowloon last week. Usually known by its common name of Chinese Gecko in Hong Kong publications, I see that IUCN gives the name Gray’s Chinese Gecko, Gekko chinensis after the man who described it in 1842, John Edward Gray (1800-1875) of the British Museum. Although common in Hong Kong, it is described as ‘rarely found inside buildings’.

The photographs show the characteristic absence of a claw on the inner digits.

Stejneger’s Stonechat—in Hong Kong last week

From Hong Kong last week came this photograph of a male stonechat. Taxonomy of the stonechats of Eurasia is mighty complicated and this one is known at present as Stejneger’s Stonechat, Saxicola stejnegeri.

I say mighty complicated because to old Hong Kong birders this was called the Siberian Stonechat, S. maurus and sometimes as an eastern race of the Common Stonechat, S. torquatus. Since some of the evidence that recognises the form found in Hong Kong as a passage migrant and winter visitor from its breeding grounds in north-east China, is based on differences in mitochondrial and not nuclear DNA, I am not sure that the present taxonomy will hold sway for that long.

Stejneger was the Norwegian-born Leonhard Hess Stejneger (1851-1943) who made his name in the U.S.A. mainly as a herpetologist working at the Smithsonian. The pronunciation of Stejneger always offers a challenge to Brits. Here, apparently, is the way it should sound.

Beautiful bird.

Frogs of China. Alice Boring’s Life and Work. 3. Herklots and Hong Kong Amphibians

As I mentioned in Parts 1 and 2 of this series Geoffrey Herklots sent specimens of Hong Kong amphibians to Peking for Alice Boring to identify. In the first of those papers all of which were published in Hong Kong Naturalist she wrote that the material was collected under the supervision of Dr Herklots for a period of a little over one year, from December 1930 to January 1932…Herklots had arrived at the University of Hong Kong in 1928 to teach biology, just like Boring in Peking, to medical students. Further specimens were sent in 1933 and possibly later but of these only one had not been represented previously. The specimens, number unknown, were collected on Hong Kong Island, on Lantau as well as in Kowloon and the New Territories.

Alice Boring identified 16 species (a 17th Herklots realised had been collected elsewhere and I have omitted any reference to it). To date 24 species of amphibians have been recorded in Hong Kong. Of the ones recorded before 1930 the Herklots collection missed only one.

The following is a checklist of Hong Kong amphibians, using the current scientific name. The ones marked § are those identified by Boring.

§Hong Kong Newt Paramesotriton hongkongensis

Leaf-litter Toad Leptolalax laui. First recorded in Hong Kong 1979

§Short-legged Toad Megophrys brachykolos (from tadpole as M. boettgeri and an adult tentatively as M. longipes )

§Asian Common Toad Duttaphrynus melanostictus

Hong Kong Cascade Frog Amolops hongkongensis. First recorded in Hong Kong 1950

South China Cascade Frog Amolops ricketti. First recorded in Hong Kong 2004

§Paddy Frog Fejervarya limnocharis

§Chinese Bullfrog Hoplobatrachus rugulosus

§Günther’s Frog Sylvirana (Hylarana) guentheri

Brown Wood Frog Hylarana latouchii. First recorded in Hong Kong 1984

§Three-striped Grass Frog Hylarana macrodactyla

§Two-striped Grass Frog Hylarana taipehensis

Big-headed Frog Limnonectes fujianensis (not recorded in Hong Kong between 1917 and 1987)

§Rough-skinned Floating Frog Occidozyga lima

§Green Cascade Frog Odorrana chloronata

§Lesser Spiny Frog Quasipaa exilispinosa (as Q. spinosa). Identified as species in 1975 (see below)

Giant Spiny Frog Quasipaa spinosa. Adults first discovered in Hong Kong 1978 (see below)

Romer’s Tree Frog Liuixalus romeri. Discovered in Hong Kong 1952

§Brown Tree Frog Polypedates megacephalus

§Spotted Narrow-mouthed Frog Kalophrynus interlineatus

§Asiatic Painted Frog Kaloula pulchra

Butler’s Pigmy Frog Microhyla butleri. First recorded in Hong Kong 1964

§Ornate Pigmy Frog Microhyla fissipes

§Marbled Pigmy Frog Microhyla pulchra

G.A.C. Herklots

As I read Boring’s papers I became intrigued about the two species of Quasipaa, exilispinosa and spinosa, now known to occur in hill and mountain streams. One, Q. spinosa is much larger than the other, reaching 14 cm—the largest anuran in Hong Kong. Although the drawing used to illustrate Boring’s paper is clearly of Q. exilispinosa (the webbing of the hind limbs does not reach the tip of the toes whereas in Q. spinosa it does) she wrote: ‘My material from Hong Kong includes two very large specimens and 7 medium-sized ones…’ Unfortunately, she provided no quantitative information but there remains the possibility that the collection sent by Herklots did contain the two species of spiny stream frogs rather than just the one.

This collaborative effort between Alice Boring and Geoffrey Herklots was the first organised survey of the amphibians of Hong Kong. It provided the basis on which others have built, starting, of course, with John Romer who began his activities soon after his arrival in the late 1940s.

I do not know if Boring and Herklots ever met. There was one opportunity in Hong Kong in 1937 when Boring, caught away from Yenching during the Japanese advance, made her way back to the university by first travelling south.

Paddy Frog (Fejervarya limnocharis)

Boring AM. 1934. The amphibia of Hong Kong Part I. Hong Kong Naturalist 5, 8-22

Boring AM. 1934. The amphibia of Hong Kong Part II. Hong Kong Naturalist 5, 95-107

Boring AM. 1936. The amphibia of Hong Kong Part III. Hong Kong Naturalist 7, 11-14

Karsen SJ, Lau M W-N, Bogadek A. 1998. Hong Kong Amphibians and Reptiles. Second Edition. Hong Kong: Provisional Urban Council

Frogs of China. Alice Boring’s Life and Work. 2. Legacy: Liu Cheng Chao

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.

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?

A plate from Liu's book showing the species named for Alice Boring
I have added a red arrow to show the sharp tubercles

Another plate from Amphibians of Western China

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 

Frogs of China. Alice Boring’s Life and Work. 1. Biography

As we explored the Hong Kong University Compound after our arrival in November 1965 we came across the lily pond. Seeing the occasional plop as a frog jumped into the water, we decided to continue the exploration in the evening. As well as collecting two nightwatchmen as spectators, several frogs were caught. We had no idea what they were so the next day tried to identify them. Fortunately, there was a tiny collection of offprints in the old zoology department’s office. Some were the checklists given by John Romer but others were from the Hong Kong Naturalist series of the 1930s. How those offprints had survived or had been obtained later we had no idea since the then newly-opened science building had been stripped of everything during the Japanese Occupation. However, they were there and as well as identifying the frogs as Günther's frog, Sylvirana (formerly Rana and Hylarana) guentheri, we became acquainted with the name of the author of the key paper, Alice M. Boring.

Alice Middleton Boring*

Only a couple of years ago when I read her short biography in Contributions to the History of Herpetology did I realise that she was the doyenne of amphibians in China. I also found a book on her life had been published in 1999, A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor. That provides a highly detailed account of her entire life together with background on political and military events unfolding in China during the 20th century. After reading it I see why the authors chose that title.

Alice Boring, as well as living in China in interesting times—very interesting times—was, in the early decades of the 20th century, part of the cutting edge of biological research in the U.S.A. Then, in China, she realised that it would be impossible to pursue such studies and turned to describing and cataloguing the amphibians of China. It is for these latter works of scholarship that she is still remembered today, rather than for the original research on cytogenetics with world leaders in their fields of her earlier years.

From a school in Philadelphia and part of a largely Quaker family, Alice Middleton Boring, gained admission to the Quaker-founded women’s college Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania. Teaching at the college were Nettie Stevens (1861-1912) who amongst some confusion about credit at the time appears to have discovered sex chromosomes. There was also Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) who went on to win a Nobel Prize for his work on genetics. After a Ph.D. under Stevens she worked in Würzburg (with Stevens) where they annoyed Theodor Boveri as “the purest blood suckers” (i.e. visiting scientists who visit for a very short time, take up the host’s time and resources and emerge with only superficial findings) and then in Naples.

Returning to the U.S.A. in 1910, Boring got her first job in the agricultural college of the University of Maine where her boss was Raymond Pearl (1879-1940). It would take a book to describe Pearl’s life and career, his many wrong-headed ideas as well as some better ones. Suffice it to say that Boring collaborated with Pearl on reproduction and the plumage pattern of domestic chickens. She advanced rapidly through the ranks to be Associate Professor by 1913. Then, in 1918 at the age of 35, she upped sticks for China on a two-year appointment.

The job she went to was a new one. Rockefeller money had bought out the old Union Medical College in Peking from the joint control of British and American missionary societies and renamed it the Peking Union Medical College. There was though pretty open warfare between the missionaries and Rockefeller employees even though in the end the board that ran the college had input from both. Boring arrived at the time of expansion into a new pre-clinical school. She was fiercely anti-missionary, taught there for two years and at the end of her contract returned to the U.S.A. as professor of zoology at Wellesley College.

Boring was apparently frustrated by Wellesley. Zoology was treated as a poor relation. She entered into negotiations to return to China. It was intended that a new university organised on American lines, Yenching, formed by merging various colleges in Peking (I will stick to the Wade-Giles transliteration instead of the Pinyin ‘Beijing’) should act as a pre-clinical feeder to the Peking Union Medical College, and should take over that function entirely from the College. The university itself was eager not to give Boring a long-term position since they had somebody else lined up for the permanent job. Eventually, she was reassured about her many concerns by the head of the university, John Leighton Stuart (1876-1962) and after making sure she would not be on a missionary’s salary, and that the position at Wellesley would be kept open for her return, she was all set to go: “It would seem like a bit of real contribution to civilization as opposed to teaching in America”. She did not return to Wellesley, preferring Chinese students eager to learn to American young ladies keener to acquire a Mrs as a pre-nominal than a bachelor’s degree after it.

Alice Boring arrived at Yenching University in 1923. She  landed at a time of considerable political and military turmoil which continued until and after her final departure 27 years later. Like her boss, Stuart, Boring took an anti-Western stance. Anti-missionary initially, her position became more nuanced when she argued that the christian groups were also opposed to imperialism and capitalism. She—and Stuart who was born in China, the son of American missionaries—supported the political aspirations of the students, as anti-Western and anti-Japanese rioting flared up and as battles raged between warlords.

Yenching University ca 1937*

Boring was remembered as an austere and tough but kindly task-mistress in preparing students for admission to the medical school. Reading the accounts of her student laboratory sessions with regular tests, my impression is one of overteaching and more like a school class than what would have been expected at the time in an English university. She certainly demanded high standards but also ensured the students were looked after and became proficient in the couth and culture required to move in Western circles and to spend time in the U.S.A. for postgraduate studies. Students who succeeded clearly thought highly of her, both for her knowledge and as a mentor even though she was known by students of both sexes to favour the men. That she was prim, proper, fierce and opinionated there is no doubt. But beneath the prim exterior was something very kind and a little more wild. On a camping trip in Mongolia soon after her arrival in China she wrote: ‘…we take shower baths in the morning by rolling naked in the long wet grass’. Her brother wrote of her as enthusiasm as a ‘menace to society’.

Teaching clearly occupied a great deal of her time (she was in her green lab coat and spectacles nicknamed the ‘Green Grasshopper’ by her students) in Peking. Research was a different matter. She decided that it would be impossible to continue her interest in what was then seen as modern biology. Instead she turned towards the description and taxonomy of the amphibians and reptiles of China. During a long leave at the University of Pennsylvania in 1928-1929 she was in contact with the leading herpetologists of the day to learn all she could about the field and what she needed to do in order to become proficient. At the same time she avoided most of her old acquaintances in cytology and genetics who would undoubtedly have looked down their noses at a move to the world of dead frogs and museums. Pearl though, with whom she was in contact, was supportive. She had already met and helped Clifford H. Pope (1899-1974) on one of his numerous expeditions to China. Further assistance and support was obtained from G.K. Noble (1894-1940) and Albert Hazen Wright (1879-1970).

Boring returned to Yenching to enjoy the new laboratory she had designed and the formal opening of the university. However all was not sweetness and light. First there was the need to raise cash after the Wall Street Crash of 1929; Boring helped but reluctantly. Second there was Stuart, a widower since 1926, who attracted a coterie of female fans. Boring emerged as top dog after what can only be described as a cat-fight with her former friend and house-mate Grace Boynton who taught English. While Boynton was on leave, Boring began to have Sunday dinner with Stuart. When Boynton returned she joined them. Boring asked her to leave. The resultant mutual loathing lasted for many years even though in the end they came to some form of accommodation if not renewed friendship. Students saw Boring and Stuart walking hand in hand over the bridge on campus and tongues began to wag. One staff member noted that Boring became, in effect, social secretary and hostess to Leighton Stuart. She rode with him and travelled with him to make up a foursome on a camping trip. Members of the English department wrote a poem about her ‘something about the power behind the power behind the power behind the throne’. Whatever happened between them though, Stuart avoided permanent commitment. Indeed, during the Japanese occupation he brought one Alice Gregg to the campus. Gregg described herself as “just Stuart’s Shanghai Sweetie”. Grace Boynton described Boring as “frantic” but that Stuart “never seemed aware that AMB was green with jealousy”.

Leighton Stuart's house, Yenching University*

External political forces continued to have major effects on the university campus and student body. After Chiang Kai-shek became established as top warlord in 1930 to head a Nationalist government, Japanese encroachment and occupation of Manchuria was not met by firm action. Student protests demanding action against Japan erupted. Some faculty members backed the students; others Chiang Kai-shek. Boring met Madame Chiang (a former Wellesley student) and was impressed. Time after time, some incident sparked off protests and strikes. Eager to ensure the students did not waste all their time on patriotic protests, Boring once found herself on the wrong side of them when she attempted to hold a lecture during a demonstration.

1937 saw a major shift. Japanese forces pushed into China and occupied Peking. At the time Boring and other staff members of Yenching were on local leave 70 miles south of Peking. They made their way back via Canton and Hong Hong and the university carried on operating with the Japanese in occupation while to the south were the Nationalists and the Communists. Students from the south crossed the lines to and from Yenching, eager to get the best education in Yenching while becoming open to accusations of being unpatriotic. There was a degree of rapprochement between Boring and Boynton with the latter becoming the conduit for information from Yenching to Boring’s family in the U.S.A. since she chose to be evacuated (until returning to unoccupied China) while Boring was insistent on staying on.

After the attacks on Pearl Harbour and on Hong Kong, the foreigners in Yenching were interned, first on campus and then into houses left empty by American diplomats. Finally on 25 March 1943 they were moved to a camp—foul it goes without saying—in Shandong. However, she was not there that long because Alice Boring was down for repatriation in exchange for Japanese internees. She sailed with other Yenching staff on 24 August on board Teia Maru (crowded, dirty and short of food and water) for Goa, then belonging to neutral Portugal. A neutral ship, the Swedish M.S. Gripsholm then carried the 1,440 Americans and Canadians to Jersey City.

Alice Boring clearly felt it hard to be back in the U.S.A at the age of 60. Nobody, least of all her family, was really interested in her life in China and like so many long-term expatriates she remained wrapped up in Chinese affairs. She was a supporter of Chiang Kai-shek, even while recognising the shortcomings of his regime. A couple of temporary teaching jobs occupied some of her time. It is not surprising that she headed back to Yenching as soon as it was possible to do so.

Returning to Yenching in September 1946, exactly one year after VJ-Day, she set about gathering equipment for her course. But the civil war was close. Stuart was made U.S. Ambassador to the Chinese government—an episode that did not end well. The end of 1948 brought Nationalist forces retreating through the campus followed by very polite Communist soldiers who got on well with both staff and students. The initial soft approach of the new regime to Western interests hardened. Political events and family tragedies beckoned Boring home. She left Yenching in August 1950 and died on 18 September 1955, aged 72. Grace Boynton, Alice Boring’s rival for Leighton Stuart’s attention, was given the job best described as ‘historical executor’, sorting her letters and papers on her life at Yenching for archiving.

In Part 2 I will cover Alice Boring’s contributions to herpetology and her lasting legacy in China.

*Photographs from International Mission Photography Archive, University of Southern California

Ogilvie MB, Choquette CJ, 1999. A Dame Full of Vim and Vigor: a Biography of Alice Middleton Boring: biologist in China. Amsterdam: Harwood.

Anon. 2014. Boring, Alice M. In Contributions to the History of Herpetology (Volume 1, revised and expanded), Edite by Kraig Adler, pp 107-108. Society for the Study of Reptiles and Amphibians.