CHINA'S ANIMAL FRONTIER

Do you know what a herpetologist is? Well, it's a scientist who deals with that phase of zoology which treats of reptiles. And it is in this field that Clifford Pope, youngest member of the Roy Chapman Andrews' expedition to China, is concerned. The title of this book is misleading, for there is very little about animals in the book. The first two thirds deals with problems with which he was confronted, -- language mastery, transportation in different mediums, various headquarters, luxurious and otherwise, problems of food and drink and cooks and servants, preparation and equipment, personalities of members of the outfit, and so on. There are sections on the animal market, on amphibians, on mammals, on strange creatures they encountered. There is nothing juvenile about the book, and I felt that only the boy seriously interested in the subject, from a scientific viewpoint, would be attracted. To me it was much less good reading than his Snakes Alive.