CHAPTER VI.

NATURAL HISTORY OF CHINA.

The succinct account of the natural history of China given by Sir John Davis in 1836, contained nearly all the popular notices of much value then known, and need not be repeated, while summarizing the items derived from other and later sources. Malte-Brun observed long ago, “That of even the more general, and, according to the usual estimate, the more important features of that vast sovereignty, we owe whatever knowledge we have obtained to some ambassadors who have seen the courts and the great roads--to certain merchants who have inhabited a suburb of a frontier town--and to several missionaries who, generally more credulous than discriminating, have contrived to penetrate in various directions into the interior.” The volumes upon China in the Edinburgh Cabinet Library contain the best digest of what was known forty years since on this subject. The botanical collections of Robert Fortune in 1844-1849, and those of Col. Champion at Hongkong, have been studied by Bentham, while the later researches of Hance, Bunge and Maximowitch have brought many new forms to notice. In geology, Pumpelly, Kingsmill, Bickmore, and Baron Richthofen have greatly enlarged and certified our knowledge by their travels and memoirs; while Père David, Col. Prejevalsky, Swinhoe, Stimpson, and Sir John Richardson have added hundreds of new species to the scientific fauna of the Empire.

~GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.~

Personal investigation is particularly necessary in all that relates to the geology and fossils of a country, and the knowledge possessed on these heads is, it must be conceded, still meagre, though now sufficient to convey a general idea of the formations, deposits, and contents of the mountains and mines, as well as the agencies at work in modifying the surface of this land. The descriptions and observed facts recorded in native books may furnish valuable hints when they can be compared with the places and productions, for at present the difficulty of explaining terms used, and understanding the processes described, render these treatises hard to translate. The empirical character of Chinese science compels a careful sifting of all its facts and speculations by comparisons with nature, while the amount of real information contained in medical, topographical, and itinerant works render them always worth examining. Large regions still await careful examination in every part of the Empire; and it will be well for the Chinese Government if no tempting metallic deposits are found to test its strength to protect and work them for its own benefit. But in mere science it cannot be doubted that so peculiar a part of the world as the plateau of Central Asia will, when thoroughly examined, solve many problems relating to geology, and disclose many important facts to illustrate the obscure phenomena of other parts of the world.

A few notices of geological formations furnished in the writings of travellers, have already been given in the geographical account of the provinces. The summary published by Davis is a well digested survey of the observations collected by the gentlemen attached to the embassies.[167]

~LOESS-BEDS OF NORTHERN CHINA.~

The loess-beds, covering a great portion of Northern China, are among the most peculiar natural phenomena and interesting fields for geological investigation on the world’s surface. Since attention was first directed to this deposit by Pumpelly, in 1864, its formation and extent have been more carefully examined by other geologists, whose hypotheses are now pretty generally discarded for that of Baron von Richthofen. The loess territory begins, at its eastern limit, with the foot hills of the great alluvial plane. From this rises a terrace of from 90 to 250 feet in height, consisting entirely of loess, and westward of it, in a nearly north and south line, stretches the Tai-hang shan, or dividing range between the alluvial land and the hill country of Shansí. An almost uninterrupted loess-covered country extends west of this line to the Koko-nor and head-waters of the Yellow River. On the north the formation can be traced from the vicinity of Kalgan, along the water-shed of the Mongolian steppes, and into the desert beyond the Ala shan. Toward the south its limits are less sharply defined; though covering all the country of the Wei basin (in Shensí), none is found in Sz’chuen, due south of this valley, but it appears in parts of Honan and Eastern Shantung. Excepting occasional spurs and isolated spots--as at Nanking and the Lakes Poyang and Tungting--loess may be considered as ending everywhere on the north side of the Yangtsz’ valley, and, roughly speaking, to cover the parallelogram between longs. 99° and 115°, and lats. 33° and 41°. The district within China Proper represents a territory half as large again as that of the German Empire, while outside of the Provinces there is reason to believe that loess spreads far toward the east and north. In the Wu-tai shan (Shansí), Richthofen observed this deposit to a height of 7,200 feet above the sea, and supposes that it may occur at higher levels.

The term _loess_, now generally accepted, has been used to designate a tertiary deposit appearing in the Rhine valley and several isolated sections of Europe; its formation has heretofore been ascribed to glaciers, but its enormous extent and thickness in China demand some other origin. The substance is a brownish colored earth, extremely porous, and when dry easily powdered between the fingers, when it becomes an impalpable dust that may be rubbed into the pores of the skin. Its particles are somewhat angular in shape, the lumps varying from the size of a peanut to a foot in length, whose appearance warrants the peculiarly appropriate Chinese name meaning ‘ginger stones.’ After washing, the stuff is readily disintegrated, and spread far and wide by rivers during their freshets; Kingsmill[168] states that a number of specimens which crumbled in the moist air of a Shanghai summer, rearranged themselves afterward in the bottom of a drawer in which they had been placed. Every atom of loess is perforated by small tubes, usually very minute, circulating after the manner of root-fibres, and lined with a thin coating of carbonate of lime. The direction of these little canals being always from above downward, cleavage in the loess mass, irrespective of its size, is invariably vertical, while from the same cause surface water never collects in the form of rain puddles or lakes, but sinks at once to the local water level.

One of the most striking, as well as important phenomena of this formation is the perpendicular splitting of its mass into sudden and multitudinous clefts that cut up the country in every direction, and render observation, as well as travel, often exceedingly difficult. The cliffs, caused by erosion, vary from cracks measured by inches to cañons half a mile wide and hundreds of feet deep; they branch out in every direction, ramifying through the country after the manner of tree-roots in the soil--from each root a rootlet, and from these other small fibres--until the system of passages develops into a labyrinth of far-reaching and intermingling lanes. Were the loess throughout of the uniform structure seen in single clefts, such a region would indeed be absolutely impassable, the vertical banks becoming precipices of often more than a thousand feet. The fact, however, that loess exhibits all over a terrace formation, renders its surface not only habitable, but highly convenient for agricultural purposes; it has given rise, moreover, to the theory advanced by Kingsmill and some others, of its stratification, and from this a proof of its origin as a marine deposit. Richthofen argues that these apparent layers of loess are due to external conditions, as of rocks and débris sliding from surrounding hillsides upon the loess as it sifted into the basin or valley, thus interrupting the homogeneity of the gradually rising deposit. In the sides of gorges near the mountains are seen layers of coarse débris which, in going toward the valley, become finer, while the layers themselves are thinner and separated by an increasing vertical distance; along these rubble beds are numerous calcareous concretions which stand upright. These are then the terrace-forming layers which, by their resistance to the action of water, cause the broken chasms and step-like contour of the loess regions. Each bank does indeed cleave vertically, sometimes--since the erosion works from below--leaving an overhanging bank; but meeting with this horizontal layer of marl stones, the abrasion is interrupted, and a ledge is made. Falling clods upon such spaces are gradually spread over their surfaces by natural action, converting them into rich fields. When seen from a height in good seasons, these systems of terraces present an endless succession of green fields and growing crops; viewed from the deep cut of a road below, the traveller sees nothing but yellow walls of loam and dusty tiers of loess ridges. As may be readily imagined, a country of this nature exhibits many landscapes of unrivalled picturesqueness, especially when lofty crags, which some variation in the water-course has left as giant guardsmen in fertile river valleys, stand out in bold relief against the green background of neighboring hills and a fruitful alluvial bottom, or when an opening of some ascending pass allows the eye to range over leagues of sharp-cut ridges and teaming crops, the work of the careful cultivator.

~UTILITY AND FRUITFULNESS OF THE LOESS.~

The extreme ease with which loess is cut away tends at times to seriously embarrass traffic. Dust made by the cart-wheels on a highway is taken up by strong winds during the dry season and blown over the surrounding lands, much after the manner in which it was originally deposited here. This action continued over centuries, and assisted by occasional deluges of rain, which find a ready channel in the road-bed, has hollowed the country routes into depressions of often 50 or 100 feet, where the passenger may ride for miles without obtaining a glimpse of the surrounding scenery. Lieutenant Kreitner, of the Széchenyí exploring expedition, illustrates,[169] in a personal experience in Shansí, the difficulty and danger of leaving these deep cuts; after scrambling for miles along the broken loess above the road, he only regained it when a further passage was cut off by a precipice on the one side, while a jump of some 30 feet into the beaten track below awaited him on the other. Difficult as may be such a territory for roads and the purposes of trade, the advantages to a farmer are manifold. Wherever this deposit extends, there the husbandman has an assured harvest, two and even three times in a year. It is easily worked, exceedingly fertile, and submits to constant tillage, with no other manure than a sprinkling of its own loam dug from the nearest bank. But loess performs still another service to its inhabitants. Caves made at the base of its straight clefts afford homes to millions of people in the northern provinces. Choosing an escarpment where the consistency of the earth is greatest, the natives cut for themselves rooms and houses, whose partition walls, cement, bed and furniture are made from the same loess. Whole villages cluster together in a series of adjoining or superimposed chambers, some of which pierce the soil to a depth of often more than 200 feet. In more costly dwellings the terrace or succession of terraces thus perforated are faced with brick, as well as the arching of rooms within. The advantages of such habitations consist as well in imperviousness to changes of temperature without, as in their durability when constructed in properly selected places, many loess dwellings outlasting six or seven generations. The capabilities of defence in a country such as this, where an invading army must inevitably become lost in the tangle of interlacing ways, and where the defenders may always remain concealed, is very suggestive.

There remains, lastly, a peculiar property of loess which is perhaps more important than all other features when measured by its man-serving efficiency. This is the manner in which it brings forth crops without the aid of manure. From a period more than 2,000 years before Christ, to the present day, the province of Shansí has borne the name of Grainery of the Empire, while its fertile soil, _hwang-tu_, or ‘yellow earth,’ is the origin of the imperial color. Spite of this productiveness, which, in the fourteenth century, caused the Friar Odoric to class it as the second country in the world, its present capacity for raising crops seems to be as great as ever. In the nature of this substance lies the reason for this apparently inexhaustible fecundity. Its remarkably porous structure must indeed cause it to absorb the gases necessary to plant life to a much greater degree than other soils, but the stable production of those mineral substances needful to the yearly succession of crops is in the ground itself. The salts contained more or less in solution at the water level of the region are freed by the capillary action of the loess when rain-water sinks through the spongy mass from above. Surface moisture following the downward direction of the tiny loess tubes establishes a connection with the waters compressed below, when, owing to the law of diffusion, the ingredients, being released, mix with the moisture of the little canals, and are taken from the lowest to the topmost levels, permeating the ground and furnishing nourishment to the plant roots at the surface. It is on account of this curious action of loess that a copious rain-fall is more necessary in North China than elsewhere, for with a dearth of rain the capillary communication from above, below, and _vice versa_, is interrupted, and vegetation loses both its manure and moisture. Drought and famine are consequently synonymous terms here.

~RICHTHOFEN’S THEORY OF ITS ORIGIN.~

As to the formation and origin of loess, Richthofen’s theory is substantially as follows:[170] The uniform composition of this material over extended areas, coupled with the absence of stratification and of marine or fresh-water organic remains, renders impossible the hypothesis that it is a water deposit. On the other hand, it contains vast quantities of land-shells and the vestiges of animals (mammalia) at every level, both in remarkably perfect condition. Concluding, also, that from the conformation of the neighboring mountain chains and their peculiar weathering, the glacial theory is inadmissible, he advances the supposition that loess is a sub-aërial deposit, and that its fields are the drained analogues of the steppe-basins of Central Asia. They date from a geological era of great dryness, before the existence of the Yellow and other rivers of the northern provinces. As the rocks and hills of the highlands disintegrated, the sand was removed, not by water-courses seaward, but by the high winds ranging over a treeless desert landward, until the dust settled in the grass-covered districts of what is at present China Proper. New vegetation was at once nourished, while its roots were raised by the constantly arriving deposit; the decay of old roots produced the lime-lined canals which impart to this material its peculiar characteristics. Any one who has observed the terrible dust-storms of North China, when the air is filled with an impalpable yellow powder, which leaves its coating upon everything, and often extends, in a fog-like cloud, hundreds of miles to sea, will understand the power of this action during many thousand years. This deposition received the shells and bones of innumerable animals, while the dissolved solutions contained in its bulk stayed therein, or saturated the water of small lakes. By the sinking of mountain chains in the south, rain-clouds emptied themselves over this region with much greater frequency, and gradually the system became drained, the erosion working backward from the coast, slowly cutting into one basin after another. With the sinking of its salts to lower levels, unexampled richness was added to the wonderful topography of this peculiar formation.[171]

Pumpelly, while accepting this ingenious theory in place of his own (that of a fresh-water lake deposit), adds that the supply of loess might have been materially increased by the vast _mers-de-glace_ of High Asia and the Tien shan, whose streams have for ages transported the products of glacial attrition into Central Asia and Northwest China. Again, he insists that Richthofen has not given importance enough to the parting planes, wrongly considered by his predecessors as planes of stratification. “These,” he says, “account for the marginal layers of débris brought down from the mountains. And the continuous and more abundant growth of grasses _at one plane_ would produce a modification of the soil structurally and chemically, which superincumbent accumulations could never efface. It should seem probable that we have herein, also, the explanation of the calcareous concretions which abound along these planes; for the greater amount of carbonic acid generated by the slow decay of this vegetation would, by forming a bicarbonate, give to the lime the mobility necessary to produce the concretions.”

~METHODS OF WORKING COAL.~

The metallic and mineral productions used in the arts comprise nearly everything found in other countries, and the common ones are furnished in such abundance, and at such rates, as conclusively prove them to be plenty and easily worked. The careful digest of observations published by Pumpelly through the Smithsonian Institution, carries out this remark, and indicates the vast field still to be explored. Coal exists in every province in China, and Pumpelly enumerates seventy-four localities which have been ascertained. Marco Polo’s well-known notice of its use shows that the people had long employed it: “It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black stone existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood. It is true that they have plenty of wood also, but they do not burn it, because those stones burn better and cost less.”[172] This mineral seems to have been unknown in Europe till after the return of the Venetian to his native land, while it was employed before the Christian era in China, and probably in very ancient times, if the accessible deposits in Shensí then cropped out in its eroded gorges, as represented by Richthofen. The few fossil plants hitherto examined indicate that the mass of these deposits are of the Mesozoic age. The mode of working the coal mines is described by Pumpelly,[173] and was probably no worse two thousand five hundred years ago. Want of machinery for draining them prevents the miners from going much below the water-level, and a rain-storm will sometimes flood and ruin a shaft. An inclined plane seldom takes the workmen more than a hundred feet below the level of the mouth, and then a horizontal gallery conducts him to the end of the mine. Some water is bailed out by buckets handed from one level up to another at the top, and the coal is carried out in baskets on the miners’ backs, or dragged in sleds over smooth, round sticks along passages too low for the coolies to do better than crawl as they work. Mr. Pumpelly found the gallery of one mine near Peking so low that he had to crawl the whole distance (six thousand feet) to see its construction, and when he emerged into daylight, with his knees nearly skinned, ascertained that the workmen padded theirs. The timbering is very expensive, yet, with all drawbacks, the coal sells, at the pit’s mouth, for $2.00 down to 50 cents a ton. The mines, lying on the slopes of the plateau reaching from near Corea to the Yellow River, supply the plain with cheap and excellent fuel.

Blakiston gives an account of the manner in which coal is worked on the Upper Yangtsz’, near the town of Süchau: “Having to be got out at a great height up in the cliff, very thick hawsers, made of plaited bamboo, are tightly stretched from the mouth, or near the mouth, of the working gallery, to a space near the water where the coal can be deposited. These ropes are in pairs, and large pannier-shaped baskets are made to traverse on them, a rope passing from one over a large wheel at the upper landing, and down again to the other, so that the full basket going down pulls the empty one up, the velocity being regulated by a kind of brake on the wheel at the top. At some places the height at which the coal is worked is so great that two or more of these contrivances are used, one taking to a landing half way down, and another from thence to the river. The hawsers are kept taut by a windlass for that purpose at the bottom.”[174] This useful mineral appears to be abundant throughout Sz’chuen Province, and is used here much less sparingly than in the east. With such inexpensive methods of getting coal to the water-courses, foreign machinery can hardly be expected to reduce its price very materially.

The economical use of coal in the household and the arts has been carried to great perfection. Anthracite is powdered and mixed with wet clay, earth, sawdust or dung, according to the exigencies of the case, in the proportion of about seven to one; the balls thus made are dried in the sun. The brick-beds (_kang_) are effective means of warming the house, and the hand furnaces enable the poor to cook with these balls--aided by a little charcoal or kindlings--at a trifling expense. This form of consumption is common north of the Yellow River, and brings coal within reach of multitudes who otherwise would suffer and starve. Bituminous, brown, and other varieties of coal occur in the same abundance and extent as in other great areas, giving promise of adequate supplies for future ages. The coal worked on the Peh kiang, in Kwangtung, contains sulphur, and is employed in the manufacture of copperas.[175]

~BUILDING STONES AND MINERALS.~

Crystallized gypsum is brought from the northwest of the province to Canton, and is ground to powder in mills; plaster of Paris and other forms of this sulphate are common all over China. It is not used as a manure, but the flour is mixed with wood-oil to form a cement for paying the seams of boats after they have been caulked. The powder is employed as a dentifrice, a cosmetic, and a medicine, and sometimes, also, is boiled to make a gruel in fevers, under the idea that it is cooling. The bakers who supplied the English troops at Amoy, in 1843, occasionally put it into the bread to make it heavier, but not, as was erroneously charged upon them, with any design of poisoning their customers, for they do not think it noxious; its employment in coloring green tea, and adulterating powdered sugar, is also explainable by other motives than a wish to injure the consumers.

Limestone is abundant at Canton, both common clouded marble and blue limestone; the last is extensively used in the artificial rockwork of gardens. Even if the Cantonese knew of the existence of lime in limestone, which they generally do not, the expense of fuel for calcining it would prevent their burning it while oyster-shells are so abundant in that region. In other provinces stone-lime is burned, by the aid of coal, in small kilns. The fine marble quarried near Peking is regarded as fit alone for imperial uses, and is seen only in such places as the Altar of Heaven and palace grounds. The marble used for floors is a fissile crystallized limestone, unsusceptible of polish; no statues or ornaments are sculptured from this mineral, but slabs are sometimes wrought out, and the surfaces curiously stained and corroded with acids, forming rude representations of animals or other figures, so as to convey the appearance of natural markings. Some of these simulated petrifactions are exceedingly well done. Slabs of argillaceous slate are also chosen with reference to their layers, and treated in the same manner. An excellent granite is used about Canton and Amoy for building, and no people exceed the Chinese in cutting it. Large slabs are split out by wooden wedges, cut for basements and foundations, and laid in a beautiful manner; pillars are also hewn from single stones of different shapes, though of no extraordinary dimensions, and their shafts embellished with inscriptions. Ornamental walls are frequently formed of large slabs set in posts, like panels, the outer faces of which are beautifully carved with figures representing a landscape or procession. Red and gray sandstone, gneiss, mica slate, and other species of rock, are also worked for pavements and walls.

Nitre is cheap and common enough in the northern provinces to obviate any fear of its being smuggled into the country from abroad; it is obtained in Chihlí by lixiviating the soil, and furnishes material for the manufacture of gunpowder. A lye is obtained from ashes, which partially serves the purposes of soap; but the people are still ignorant of the processes necessary for manufacturing it. Fourteen localities of alum are given in Pumpelly’s list, but the greatest supply for the eastern provinces comes from deposits of shale, in Ping-yang hien, in Chehkiang, which produces about six thousand tons annually. It is used mostly by the dyers, also to purify turbid water, and whiten paper. Other earthy salts are known and used, as borax, sal-ammoniac (which is collected in Mongolia and Ílí from lakes and the vicinity of extinct volcanoes), and blue and white vitriol, obtained by roasting pyrites. Common salt is procured along the eastern and southern coasts by evaporating sea-water, rock-salt not having been noticed; in the western provinces and Shansí, it is obtained from artesian wells and lakes as cheaply as from the ocean; in Tsing-yen hien, in Central Sz’chuen, two hundred and thirty-seven wells are worked. At Chusan the sea-water is so turbid that the inhabitants filter it through clay, afterward evaporating the water.

~JADE STONE, OR YUH.~

The minerals heretofore found in China have, for the most part, been such as have attracted the attention of the natives, and collected by them for curiosity or sale. The skilful manner in which their lapidaries cut crystal, agate, and other quartzose minerals, is well known.[176] The corundum used for polishing and finishing these carvings occurs in China, but a good deal of emery in powder is obtained from Borneo. A composition of granular corundum and gum-lac is usually employed by workmen in order to produce the highest lustre of which the stones are capable. The three varieties of the silicate of alumina, called jade, nephrite, and jadeite by mineralogists, are all named _yuh_ by the Chinese, a word which is applied to a vast variety of stones--white marble, ruby, and cornelian all coming under it--and therefore not easy to define. Jade has long been known in Europe as a variety of jasper, its separation from that stone into a species by itself being of comparatively recent origin. Since the third edition of Boetius, in 1647, the two minerals have been regarded as entirely distinct. Its value in the eyes of the Chinese depends chiefly upon its sonorousness and color. The costliest specimens are brought from Yunnan and Khoten; a greenish-white color is the most highly prized, a plain color of any shade being of less value. A cargo of this mineral was once imported into Canton from New Holland, but the Chinese would not purchase it, owing to a fancy taken against its origin and color. The patient toil of the workers in this hard mineral is only equalled by the prodigious admiration with which it is regarded; both fairly exhibit the singular taste and skill of the Chinese. Its color is usually a greenish-white, or grayish-green and dark grass-green; internally it is scarcely glimmering. Its fracture is splintery; splinters white; mass semi-transparent and cloudy; it scratches glass strongly, and can itself generally be scratched by flint or quartz, but while not excessively hard it is remarkable for toughness. The stone when freshly broken is less hard than after a short exposure. Specific gravity from 2.9 to 3.1.[177] Fischer (pp. 314-318) gives some one hundred and fifty names as occurring in various authors--ancient and modern--for jade or nephrite.[178] An interesting testimony to the esteem in which this stone was held in China during the middle ages comes from Benedict Goës (1602), who says: “There is no article of traffic more valuable than lumps of a certain transparent kind of marble, which we, from poverty of language, usually call jasper.... Out of this marble they fashion a variety of articles, such as vases, brooches for mantles and girdles, which, when artistically sculptured in flowers and foliage, certainly have an effect of no small magnificence. These marbles (with which the Empire is now overflowing) are called by the Chinese Iusce. There are two kinds of it; the first and more valuable is got out of the river at Cotan, almost in the same way in which divers fish for gems, and this is usually extracted in pieces about as big as large flints. The other and inferior kind is excavated from the mountains.” The ruby, diamond, amethyst, sapphire, topaz, pink tourmaline, lapis-lazuli,[179] turquoises, beryl, garnet, opal, agate, and other stones, are known and most of them used in jewelry. A ruby brought from Peking is noticed by Bell as having been valued in Europe at $50,000. The seals of the Boards are in many instances cut on valuable stones, and private persons take great pride in quartz or jade seals, with their names carved on them; lignite and jet are likewise employed for cheaper ornaments, of which all classes are fond.

~METALS AND THEIR PRODUCTION.~

All the common metals, except platina, are found in China, and the supply would be sufficient for all the purposes of the inhabitants, if they could avail themselves of the improvements adopted in other countries in blasting, mining, etc. The importations of iron, lead, tin, and quicksilver, are gradually increasing, but they form only a small proportion of the amount used throughout the Empire, especially of the two first named; iron finds its way in because of its convenient forms more than its cheapness. The careful examination of Chinese topographical works by Pumpelly,[180] records the leading localities of iron in every province, and where copper, tin, lead, silver, and quicksilver have been observed; he also mentions fifty-two places producing gold in various forms, most of them in Sz’chuen. The rumor of gold-washings occurring not far from Chifu, in Shantung, caused much excitement in 1868, but they were soon found to be not worth the labor. Gold has never been used as coin in China, but is wrought into jewelry; most of it is consumed in gilding and exported to India as bullion, in the shape of small bars or coarse leaves.

Silver is mentioned in sixty-three localities by the same author; large amounts are brought from Yunnan, and the mines in that region must be both extensive and easily worked to afford such large quantities as have been exported. The working of both gold and silver mines has been said to be prohibited, but this interdiction is rather a government monopoly of the mines than an injunction upon working those which are known. The importation of gold into China during the two centuries the trade has been opened, does not probably equal the exportation which has taken place since the commencement of the opium trade. It is altogether improbable that the Chinese are acquainted with the properties of quicksilver in separating these two metals from their ores, though its consumption in making vermilion and looking-glasses calls for over two thousand flasks yearly at Canton. Cinnabar occurs in Kweichau and Shensí and furnishes most of the “water silver,” as the Chinese call it, by a rude process of burning brushwood in the wells, and collecting the metal after condensation.

Copper is used for manufacturing coin, bells, bronze articles, domestic and cooking utensils, cannon, gongs, and brass-foil. It is found pure in some instances, and the sulphuret, the blue and green carbonates, pyrities, and other ores are worked; malachite is ground for a paint. It occurs in every province, and is specially rich in Shansí and Kweichau. The ores of zinc and copper in Yunnan and Sz’chuen furnish spelter, and the peculiar alloy known as white copper or argentan, containing in addition tin, iron, nickel, and lead. So much use indicates large deposits of the ores. Tin is rather abundant, but lead is more common; thirty-nine localities of the first are mentioned, some of which are probably zinc ores, as the Chinese confound tin and zinc under one generic name. Lead occurs with silver in many places; twenty-four mines are mentioned in Pumpelly’s list, and those in Fuhkien are rich; but the extensive importations prove that its reduction is too expensive to compete with the foreign.

Realgar is quite common, this and orpiment being used as paints; statuettes and other articles are carved from the former, while arsenic is used in agriculture to quicken grain and preserve it from insects. Amber and fossilized copal are collected in several localities; the first is much employed in the making of court necklaces and hair ornaments. The _fei-tsui_ or jadeite is the most prized of the semi-precious stones; it is cut into ear-rings, finger-rings, necklaces, etc. Pumpelly mentions pieces of this mineral set in relics obtained from tombs in Mexico, though no locality where it abounds has yet been found in America. Lapis-lazuli is employed in painting upon copper and porcelain ware; this mineral is obtained in Chehkiang and Kansuh; jadeite, topaz, and other fine stones are most plenty in Yunnan. A few minerals and fossils have been noticed in the vicinity and shops at Canton, but China thus far has furnished very few petrifactions in any strata. Coarse epidote occurs at Macao, and tungstate of iron has been noticed in the quartz rocks at Hongkong. Petrified crabs (_macrophthalmus_) have been brought to Canton from Hainan, which are prized by the natives for their supposed medicinal qualities. Scientists have hitherto described a score or more species of Devonian shells, and recognized fragments of the hyena, tapir, rhinoceros, and stegedon, among some other doubtful vertebratæ in the “dragon’s bones” sold in medicine shops; but further examinations will doubtless increase the list. Orthoceratites and bivalve shells of various kinds are noticed in Chinese books as being found in rocks, and fossil bones of huge size in caves and river banks.

There are many hot springs and other indications of volcanic action along the southern acclivities of the table land in the provinces of Shensí and Sz’chuen; and at Jeh-ho, in Chihlí, there are thermal springs to which invalids resort. The _Ho tsing_, or Fire wells, in Sz’chuen are apertures resembling artesian springs, sunk in the rock to a depth of one thousand five hundred or one thousand eight hundred feet, whilst their breadth does not exceed five or six inches. This is a work of great difficulty, and requires in some cases the labor of two or three years. The water procured from them contains a fifth part of salt, which is very acrid, and mixed with much nitre. When a lighted torch is applied to the mouth of some of those which have no water, fire is produced with great violence and a noise like thunder, bursting out into a flame twenty or thirty feet high, and which cannot be extinguished without great danger and expense. The gas has a bituminous smell, and burns with a bluish flame and a quantity of thick, black smoke. It is conducted under boilers in bamboos, and employed in evaporating the salt-water from the other springs.[181] Besides the gaseous and aqueous springs in these provinces, there are others possessing different qualities, some sulphurous and others chalybeate, found in Shansí and along the banks of the Yellow River. Sulphur occurs, as has been noted, in great abundance in Formosa, and is purified for powder manufacturers.

The animal and vegetable productions of the extensive regions under the sway of the Emperor of China include a great variety of types of different families. On the south the islands of Hainan and Formosa, and parts of the adjacent coasts, slightly partake of a tropical character, exhibiting in the cocoanuts, plantains, and peppers, the parrots, lemurs, and monkeys, decided indications of an equatorial climate. From the eastern coast across through the country to the northwest provinces occur mountain ranges of gradually increasing elevation, interspersed with intervales and alluvial plateaus and bottoms, lakes and rivers, plains and hills, each presenting its peculiar productions, both wild and cultivated, in great variety and abundance. The southern ascent of the high land of Mongolia, the uncultivated wilds of Manchuria, the barren wastes of the desert of Gobi, with its salt lakes, glaciers, extinct volcanoes, and isolated mountain ranges; and lastly the stupendous chains and valleys of Tibet, Koko-nor, and Kwănlun all differ from each other in the character of their productions. In one or the other division, every variety of soil, position, and temperature occur which are known on the globe; and what has been ascertained within the past fifteen years by enterprising naturalists is an earnest of future greater discoveries.

~QUADRUMANOUS ANIMALS OF CHINA.~

Of the quadrumanous order of animals, there are several species. The Chinese are skilful in teaching the smaller kinds of monkeys various tricks, but M. Breton’s picture of their adroitness and usefulness in picking tea in Shantung from plants growing on otherwise inaccessible acclivities, is a fair instance of one of the odd stories furnished by travellers about China, inasmuch as no tea grows in Shantung, and monkeys are taught more profitable tricks.[182] One of the most remarkable animals of this tribe is the _douc_, or Cochinchinese monkey (_Semnopithecus nemæus_). It is a large species of great rarity, and remarkable for the variety of colors with which it is adorned. Its body is about two feet long, and when standing in an upright position its height is considerably greater. The face is of an orange color, and flattened in its form. A dark band runs across the front of the forehead, and the sides of the countenance are bounded by long spreading yellowish tufts of hair. The body and upper parts of the forearms are brownish gray, the lower portions of the arms, from the elbows to the wrists, being white; its hands and thighs are black, and the legs of a bright red color, while the tail and a large triangular spot above it are pure white. Such a creature matches well, for its grotesque and variegated appearance, with the mandarin duck and gold fish, also peculiar to China.

~THE FÍ-FÍ AND HAI-TUH.~

Chinese books speak of several species of this family, and small kinds occur in all the provinces. M. David has recently added two novelties to the list from his acquisitions in Eastern Koko-nor, well fitted for that cold region by their abundant hair. The _Rhinopithecus roxellanæ_ inhabits the alpine forests, nearly two miles high, where it subsists on the buds of plants and bamboo shoots laid up for winter supply; its face is greenish, the nose remarkably _rétroussé_, and its strong, brawny limbs well fitted for the arboreal life it leads; the hair is thick and like a mane on the back, shaded with yellow and white tints. In this respect it is like the Gelada monkey of Abyssinia, and a few others protected in this part of the body from cold. This is no doubt the kind called _fí-fí_ in native books, and once found in flocks along many portions of western China, as these authors declare. Their notices are rather tantalizing, but, now that we have found the animal, are worth quoting: “The _fí-fí_ resembles a man; it is clothed with its hair, runs quick and eats men; it has a human face, long lips, black, hairy body, and turns its heels. It laughs on seeing a man and covers its eyes with its lips; it can talk and its voice resembles a bird. It occurs in Sz’chuen, where it is called _jin hiung_, or ‘human bear;’ its palms are good eating, and its skin is used; its habit is to turn over stones, seeking for crabs as its food. Its form is like that of the men who live in the Kwănlun Mountains.”

Another large simia (_Macacus thibetanus_) comes from the same region; it lives in bands like the preceding, but lower down the mountains. A third species of great size was reported to occur in the southwestern part of Sz’chuen, and described as greenish like the _Macacus tcheliensis_ from the hills northwest of Peking--the most northern species of monkey known. The former of these two may possibly be the _sing-sing_ of the Chinese books, though its characteristics involve some confusion of the Macacus and baboon on the part of those writers. Two other species of Macacus, and as many of the gibbons, have been noticed in Hainan, Formosa, and elsewhere in the south.

The singular proboscis monkey (_Nasalis laivalus_), called _khi-doc_ in Cochinchina and _hai-tuh_ by the Chinese, exhibits a strange profile, part man and part beast, reminding one of the combinations in Da Vinci’s caricatures. It is a large animal, covered with soft yellowish hair tinted with red; the long nose projects in the form of a sloping spatula. The Chinese account says: “Its nose is turned upward, and the tail very long and forked at the end, and that whenever it rains, the animal thrusts the forks into its nose. It goes in herds, and lives in friendship; when one dies, the rest accompany it to burial. Its activity is so great that it runs its head against the trees; its fur is soft and gray, and the face black.”[183]

The _Chinese Herbal_, from which the preceding extract is taken, describes the bat under various names, such as ‘heavenly rat,’ ‘fairy rat,’ ‘flying rat,’ ‘night swallow,’ and ‘belly wings;’ it also details the various uses made of the animal in medicine, and the extraordinary longevity attained by some of the white species. The bat is in form like a mouse; its body is of an ashy black color; and it has thin fleshy wings, which join the four legs and tail into one. It appears in the summer, but becomes torpid in the winter; on which account, as it eats nothing during that season, and because it has a habit of swallowing its breath, it attains a great age. It has the character of a night rover, not on account of any inability to fly in the day, but it dares not go abroad at that time because it fears a kind of hawk. It subsists on mosquitoes and gnats. It flies with its head downward, because the brain is heavy.[184] This quotation is among the best Chinese descriptions of animals, and shows how little there is to depend upon in them, though not without interest in their notices of habits. Bats are common everywhere, and seem to be regarded with less aversion than in certain other countries. Twenty species belonging to nine genera are given in one list, most of them found in southern China; the wings of some of these measure two feet across; a large sort in Sz’chuen is eaten.

~WILD ANIMALS.~

The brown bear is known, and its paws are regarded as a delicacy; trained animals are frequently brought into cities by showmen, who have taught them tricks. The discovery by David of a large species (_Ailuropus melanoleurus_) allied to the Himalayan panda (_Ailurus fulgens_), also found on the Sz’chuen Mountains, adds another instance of the strange markings common in Tibetan fauna. This beast feeds on flesh and vegetables; its body is white, but the ears, eyes, legs, and tip of the tail are quite black; the fur is thick and coarse. It is called _peh hiung_, or white bear, by the hunters, but is no doubt the animal called _pi_ in the classics, common in early times over western China, and now rare even in Koko-nor. The Tibetan black bear occurs in Formosa, Shantung, and Hainan, showing a wide range. The badger is quite as widespread, and the two species have the same general appearance as their European congeners.

Carnivorous animals still exist, even in thickly settled districts. The lion may once have roamed over the southwestern Manji kingdom, but the name and drawings both indicate a foreign origin. It has much connection with Buddhism, and grotesque sculptures of rampant lions stand in pairs in front of temples, palaces, and graves, as a mark of honor and symbol of protection. The last instance of a live lion brought as tribute was to Hientsung in A.D. 1470, from India or Ceylon. Many other species of _felis_ are known, some of them peculiar to particular regions. The royal tiger has been killed near Amoy, and in Manchuria the panther, leopard, and tiger-cat all occur in the northern and southern provinces, making altogether a list of twelve species ranging from Formosa to Sagalien. Mr. Swinhoe’s[185] account of his rencounter with a tiger near Amoy in 1858 explains how such large animals still remain in thickly settled regions where food is abundant and the people are timid and unarmed. In thinly peopled parts they become a terror to the peasants. M. David enumerates six kinds, including a lynx, in Monpin alone, one of which (_Felis scripta_) is among the most prettily marked of the whole family. Hunting-leopards and tigers were used in the days of Marco Polo by Kublai, but the manly pastime of the chase, on the magnificent scale then practised, has fallen into disuse with the present princes. A small and fierce species of wild-cat (_Felis chinensis_), two feet long, of a brownish-gray color, and handsomely marked with chestnut spots and black streaks, is still common in the southwestern portions of Fuhkien. Civet cats of two or three kinds, tree-civets (_Helictes_), and a fine species of marten (_Martes_), with yellow neck and purplish-brown body, from Formosa, are among the smaller carnivora in the southern provinces.

~CATS AND DOGS.~

The domestic animals offer few peculiarities. The cat, _kia lí_, or ‘household fox,’ is a favorite inmate of families, and the ladies of Peking are fond of a variety of the Angora cat, having long silky hair and hanging ears. The common species is variously marked, and in the south often destitute of a tail; when reared for food it is fed on rice and vegetables, but is not much eaten. Popular superstition has clustered many omens of good and bad luck about cats; it is considered, for example, the prognostic of certain misfortune when a cat is stolen from a house--much as, in some countries of the western world, it is unlucky when a black cat crosses one’s pathway.

The dog differs but little from that reared among the Esquimaux, and is perhaps the original of the species. There is little variation in their size, which is about a foot high and two feet in length; the color is a pale yellow or black, and always uniform, with coarse bristling hair, and tails curling up high over the back, and rising so abruptly from the insertion that it has been humorously remarked they almost assist in lifting the legs from the ground. The hind legs are unusually straight, which gives them an awkward look, and perhaps prevents them running very rapidly. The black eyes are small and piercing, and the insides of the lips and mouths, and the tongue, are of the same color, or a blue black. The bitch has a dew-claw on each hind leg, but the dog has none. The ears are sharp and upright, the head peaked, and the bark a short, thick snap, very unlike the deep, sonorous baying of our mastiffs. In Nganhwui a peculiar variety has pendant ears of great length, and thin, wirey tails. One item in the Chinese description of the dog is that it ‘can go on three legs’--a gait that is often exhibited by them. They are used to watch houses and flocks; the Mongolian breed is fierce and powerful. The dogs of Peking are very clannish, and each set jealously guards its own street or yard; they are fed by the butchers in the streets, and serve as scavengers there and in all large towns. They are often mangey, presenting hideous spectacles, and instances of _plica polonica_ are not uncommon, but, as among the celebrated street dogs of Constantinople, hydrophobia is almost unheard of among them. Dog markets are seen in every city where this meat is sold; the animals are reared expressly for the table, but their flesh is expensive.

One writer remarks on their habits, when describing the worship offered at the tombs: “Hardly had the hillock been abandoned by the worshippers, when packs of hungry dogs came running up to devour the part of the offerings left for the dead, or to lick up the grease on the ground. Those who came first held up their heads, bristled their hair, and showed a proud and satisfied demeanor, curling and wagging their tails with selfish delight; while the late-comers, tails between their legs, held their heads and ears down. There was one of them, however, which, grudging the fare, held his nose to the wind as if sniffing for better luck; but one lean, old, and ugly beast, with a flayed back and hairless tail, was seen gradually separating himself from the band, though without seeming to hurry himself, making a thousand doublings and windings, all the while looking back to see if he was noticed. But the old sharper knew what he was about, and as soon as he thought himself at a safe distance, away he went like an arrow, the whole pack after him, to some other feast and some other tomb.”[186]

Wolves, raccoon-dogs, and foxes are everywhere common, in some places proving to be real pests in the sheepfold and farmyard. In the vicinity of Peking, it is customary to draw large white rings on the plastered walls, in order to terrify the wolves, as these beasts, it is thought, will flee on observing such traps. The Chinese regard the fox as the animal into which human spirits enter in preference to any other, and are therefore afraid to destroy or displease it. The elevated steppes are the abodes of three or four kinds, which find food without difficulty. The Tibetan wolf (_Canis chanco_) has a warm, yellowish-white covering, and ranges the wilds of Tsaidam and Koko-nor in packs. The fox (_Canis cossac_) spreads over a wide range, and is famed for its sagacity in avoiding enemies.

~CATTLE, SHEEP, AND DEER.~

The breed of cattle and horses is dwarfish, and nothing is done to improve them. The oxen are sometimes not larger than an ass; some of them have a small hump, showing their affinity to the zebu; the dewlap is large, and the contour neat and symmetrical. The forehead is round, the horns small and irregularly curved, and the general color dun red. The buffalo (_shui niu_), or ‘water ox,’ is the largest beast used in agriculture. It is very docile and unwieldy, larger than an English ox, and its hairless hide is a light black color; it seeks coolness and refuge from the gnat in muddy pools dug for its convenience, where it wallows with its nose just above the surface. Each horn is nearly semi-circular, and bends downward, while the head is turned back so as almost to bring the nose horizontal. The herd-boys usually ride it, and the metaphor of a lad astride a buffalo’s back, blowing the flute, frequently enters into Chinese descriptions of rural life. The yak of Tibet is employed as a beast of burden, and to furnish food and raiment. It is covered with a mantle of hair reaching nearly to the ground, and the soft pelage is used for making standards among the Persians, and its tail as fly-flaps or chowries in India; the hair is woven into carpets. The wild yak (_Poephagus grunniens_) has already been described. Great herds of these huge bovines roam over the wastes of Koko-nor, where their dried droppings furnish the only fuel for the nomads crossing those barren wilds.

The domestic sheep is the broad-tailed species, and furnishes excellent mutton. The tail is sometimes ten inches long and three or four thick; and the size of this fatty member is not affected by the temperature. The sheep are reared in the north by Mohammedans, who prepare the fleeces for garments by careful tanning; the animal is white, with a black head. Goats are raised in all parts, but not in large numbers. The argali and wild sheep of the Ala shan Mountains (_Ovis Burrhel_) furnish exciting sport in chasing them over their native cliffs, which they clamber with wonderful agility. Another denizen of those dreary wilds is the _Antilope picticauda_, a small and tiny species, weighing about forty pounds, of a dusky gray color, with a narrow yellow stripe on the flanks. Its range is about the head-waters of the Yangtsz’ River; its swiftness is amazing; it seems absolutely to fly. It scrapes for itself trenches in which to lie secure from the cold.

Many genera of ruminants are represented in China and the outlying regions; twenty-seven rare species are enumerated in Swinhoe’s and David’s lists, of which eleven are antelopes and deer. The range of some of them is limited to a narrow region, and most of them are peculiar to the country. The wealthy often keep deer in their grounds, especially the spotted deer (_Cervus pseudaxis_), from Formosa, whose coat is found to vary greatly according to sex and age; its name, _kintsien luh_, or ‘money deer,’ indicates its markings. Mouse-deer are also reared as pets in the southern provinces.

One common species is the _dzeren_ or _hwang yang_ (_Antilope gutturosa_), which roams over the Mongolian wilds in large herds, and furnishes excellent venison. It is heavy in comparison to the gazelle; horns thick, about nine inches long, annulated to the tips, lyrated, and their points turned inward. The goitre, which gives it its name, is a movable protuberance occasioned by the dilatation of the larynx; in the old males it is much enlarged. The animal takes surprising bounds when running. Great numbers are killed in the autumn, and their flesh, skins, and horns are all of service for food, leather, and medicine.

Several kinds of hornless (or nearly hornless) deer, allied to the musk-deer, exist. One is the river-deer (_Hydropotes_), common near the Yangtsz’ River, which resembles the pudu of Chili; it is very prolific on the bottoms and in the islands. Another sort in the northwest (_Elaphodus_) is intermediary between the muntjacs and deer, having long, trenchant, canine upper teeth, and a deep chocolate-colored fur. Three varieties of the musk-deer (_Moschus_) have been observed, differing a little in their colors, all called _shié_ or _hiang chang_ by the Chinese, and all eagerly hunted for their musk. This perfume was once deemed to be useful in medicine, and is cited in a Greek prescription of the sixth century; the abundance of the animal in the Himalayan regions may be inferred from Tavernier’s statement that he bought 7673 bags or pods at Patna in one of his journeys over two hundred years ago. This animal roams over a vast extent of alpine territory, from Tibet and Shensí to Lake Baikal, and inhabits the loftiest cliffs and defiles, and makes its way over rugged mountains with great rapidity. It is not unlike the roe in general appearance, though the projecting teeth makes the upper lip to look broad. Its color is grayish-brown and its limbs slight; the hair is coarse and brittle, almost like spines. The musk is contained in a pouch beneath the tail on the male, and is most abundant during the rutting season. He is taken in nets or shot, and the hunters are said to allure him to destruction by secreting themselves and playing the flute, though some would say the animal showed very little taste in listening to such sounds as Chinese flutes usually produce. The musk is often adulterated with clay or mixed with other substances to moderate its powerful odor. A singular and interesting member of this family is reared in the great park south of Peking--a kind of elk with short horns. This large animal (_Elaphurus Davidianus_), of a gentle disposition, equals in size the largest deer; its native name, _sz’-puh siang_, indicates that it is neither a horse, a deer, a camel, nor an ox, but partakes in some respects of the characteristics of each of them. Its gentle croaking voice seems to be unworthy of so huge a body; the color is a uniform fawn or light gray.

~HORSES, ASSES, AND ELEPHANTS.~

The horse is not much larger than the Shetland pony; it is bony and strong, but kept with little care, and presents the worst possible appearance in its usual condition of untrimmed coat and mane, bedraggled fetlocks, and twisted tail. The Chinese language possesses a great variety of terms to designate the horse; the difference of age, sex, color, and disposition, all being denoted by particular characters. Piebald and mottled, white and bay horses are common; but the improvement of this noble animal is neglected, and he looks sorry enough compared with the coursers of India. He is principally used for carrying the post, or for military services; asses and mules being more employed for draught. He is hardy, feeds on coarse food, and admirably serves his owners. The mule is well-shaped, and those raised for the gentry are among the very best in the world for endurance and strength; dignitaries are usually drawn by sumpter mules. Donkeys are also carefully raised. Chinese books speak of a mule of a cow and horse, as well as from the ass and horse, though, of course, no such hybrid as the former ever existed.

The wild ass, or onager (under the several names by which it is known in different lands, _kyang_, _djang_, _kulan_, _djiggetai_, _ghor-khar_, and _yé-lu_), still roams free and untameable. It is abundant in Koko-nor, gathering in troops of ten to fifty, each under the lead of a stallion to defend the mares. The flesh is highly prized, and the difficulty of procuring it adds to the delicacy of the dish; the color is light chestnut, with white belly.

~THE WILD BOAR AND DOMESTIC HOG.~

Elephants are kept at Peking for show, and are used to draw the state chariot when the Emperor goes to worship at the Altars of Heaven and Earth, but the sixty animals seen in the days of Kienlung, by Bell, have since dwindled to one or two. Van Braam met six going into Peking, sent thither from Yunnan. The deep forests of that province also harbor the rhinoceros and tapir. The horn of the former is sought after as medicine, and the best pieces are carved most beautifully into ornaments or into drinking cups, which are supposed to sweat whenever any poisonous liquid is put into them. The tapir is the white and brown animal found in the Malacca peninsula, and strange stories are recorded of its eating stones and copper. The wild boar grows to weigh over four hundred pounds and nearly six feet long. In cold weather its frozen carcass is brought to Peking, and sold at a high price. A new species of hog has been found in Formosa, about three feet long, twenty-one inches high, and showing a dorsal row of large bristles; a third variety occurs among the novelties discovered in Sz’chuen (_Sus moupinensis_), having short ears. Wild boars are met with even in the hills of Chehkiang, and seriously annoy the husbandmen in the lowlands by their depredations. Deep pits are dug near the base of the hills, and covered with a bait of fresh grass, and many are annually captured or drowned in them. They are fond of the bamboo shoots, and persons are stationed near the groves to frighten them away by striking pieces of wood together.

The Chinese hollow-backed pig is known for its short legs, round body, crooked back, and abundance of fat; the flesh is the common meat of the people south of the Yangtsz’ River. The black Chinese breed, as it is called in England, is considered the best pork raised in that country. The hog in the northern provinces is a gaunt animal, uniformly black, and not so well cared for as its southern rival. Piebald pigs are common in Formosa, resulting from crossing; sometimes animals of this kind are quite woolly. The Chinese in the south, well aware of the perverse disposition of the hog, find it much more expeditious to carry instead of drive him through their narrow streets. For this purpose cylindrical baskets, open at both ends, are made; and in order to capture the obstinate brute, it is secured just outside the half-opened gate of the pen. The men seize him by the tail and pull it lustily; his rage is roused by the pain, and he struggles; they let go their hold, whereupon he darts out of the gate to escape, and finds himself snugly caught. He is lifted up and unresistingly carried off.

The camel is employed in the trade carried on across the desert, and throughout Mongolia, Manchuria, and northern China near the plateau; without his aid those regions would be impassible; the passes across the ranges near Koko-nor, sixteen thousand feet high, are traversed by his help, though amid suffering and danger. In the summer season it sheds all its hair, which is gathered for weaving into ropes and rugs; at this period, large herds pasture on the plateau to recuperate. The humps at this season hang down the back like empty bags, and the poor animal presents a distressed appearance during the hot weather. In its prime condition it carries about six hundred pounds weight, but is not used to ride upon as is the Arabian species. The two kinds serve man in one continuous _kafilah_ from the Sea of Tartary across two continents to Timbuctoo. The Chinese have employed the camel in war, and trained it to carry small gingalls so that the riders could fire them while resting on its head, but this antique kind of cavalry has disappeared with the introduction of better weapons.

~SMALLER ANIMALS AND RODENTS.~

Among the various tribes of smaller animals, the Chinese Empire furnishes many interesting peculiarities, and few families are unrepresented. No marsupials have yet been met, and the order of edentata is still restricted to one instance. Several families in other orders are rare or wanting, as baboons, spider-monkeys, skunks, and ichneumons. In the weasel tribe, some new species have been added to the already long list of valuable fur-bearing animals found in the mountains--the sable ermine, marten, pole-cat, stoat, etc., whose skins still repay the hunters. The weasel is common, but not troublesome. The otter is trained in Sz’chuen to catch fish in the mountain streams with the docility of a spaniel; another species (_Lutia swinhosi_) occurs along the islands on the southern coast, while in Hainan Island appears a kind of clawless otter of a rich brown color above and white beneath; each of these is about twenty inches long. The furs of all these, and also the sea-otter, are prepared for garments, especially collars and neck-wraps.

A kind of mole exists in Sz’chuen, having a muzzle of extreme length, while the scent of another variety near Peking is so musky as to suggest its name (_Scaptochirus moschatus_). Muskrats and shrew-mice are found both north and south; and one western species has only a rudimentary tail; while another, the _Scaptonyx_, forms an intermediate species between a mole and a shrew, having a blunt muzzle, strong fore feet and a long tail; and lastly, a sort fitted for aquatic habits, with broad hind feet and flattened tail. Tiny hedgehogs are common even in the streets and by-lanes of Peking, where they find food and refuge in the alluvial earth. Two or three kinds of marmots and mole-rats are found in the north and west (_Siphucus Arctomys_), all specifically unlike their congeners elsewhere. The Chinese have a curious fancy in respect to one beast, one bird, and one fish, each of which, they say, requires that two come together to make one complete animal, viz., the jerboa, the spoonbill and sole-fish; the first (_Dipus annulatus_) occurs in the sands of northern China, the second in Formosa, and the third along the coasts.

Many kinds of rodents have been described. The alpine hare (_Lagomys ogotona_) resembles a marmot in its habits and is met with throughout the grassy parts of the steppes; its burrows riddle the earth wherever the little thing gathers, and endangers the hunters riding over it. It is about the size of a rat, and by its wonderful fecundity furnishes food to a great number of its enemies--man, beasts, and birds; it is not dormant, but gathers dry grass for food and warmth during cold weather; this winter store is, however, often consumed by cattle before it is stored away. Hares and rabbits are well known. Two species of the former are plenty on the Mongolian grass-lands, one of which has very long feet; in winter their frozen bodies are brought to market. One species is restricted to Hainan Island. Ten or twelve kinds of squirrels have been described, red, gray, striped, and buff; one with fringed ears. Their skins are prepared for the furriers, and women wear winter robes lined with them. Two genera of flying-squirrel (_Pteromys_ and _Sciuropterus_) have been noticed, the latter in Formosa and the former mostly in the western provinces. Chinese writers have been puzzled to class the flying-squirrel; they place it among birds, and assure their readers that it is the only kind which suckles its young when it flies, and that “the skin held in the hand during parturition renders delivery easier, because the animal has a remarkably lively disposition.” The long, dense fur of the _P. alborufous_ makes beautiful dresses, the white tips of the hair contrasting prettily with the red ground.

Of the proper rats and mice, more than twenty-five species have been already described. Some of them are partially arboreal, others have remarkably long tails, and all but three are peculiar to the country. A Formosan species, called by Swinhoe the spinous country rat, had been dedicated to Koxinga, the conqueror of that island; while another common in Sz’chuen bears the name of _Mus Confucianus_. The extent to which the Chinese eat rats has been greatly exaggerated by travellers, for the flesh is too expensive for general use.

One species of porcupine (_Hystrix subcristata_) inhabits the southern provinces, wearing on its head a purplish-black crest of stout spines one to five inches long; the bristles are short, but increase in size and length to eight or nine inches toward the rump; the entire length is thirty-three inches. The popular notion that the porcupine darts its quills at its enemies as an effectual weapon is common among the Chinese.

No animal has puzzled the Chinese more than the scaly ant-eater or pangolin (_Manis dalmanni_), which is logically considered as a certain and useful remedy by them, simply because of its oddity. It is regarded as a fish out of water, and therefore named _ling-lí_, or ‘hill carp,’ also dragon carp, but the most common designation is _chuen shan kiah_, or the ‘scaly hill borer.’ One author says: “Its shape resembles a crocodile; it can go in dry paths as well as in the water; it has four legs. In the daytime it ascends the banks of streams, and lying down opens its scales wide, putting on the appearance of death, which induces the ants to enter between them. As soon as they are in, the animal closes its scales and returns to the water to open them; the ants float out dead, and he devours them at leisure.” A more accurate observer says: “It continually protrudes its tongue to entice the ants on which it feeds;” and true to Chinese physiological deductions, _similia similibus curantur_, he recommends the scales as a cure for all antish swellings. He also remarks that the scales are not bony, and consist of the agglutinated hairs of the body. The adult specimens measure thirty-three inches. It walks on the sides of the hind feet and tips of the claws of the fore feet, and can stand upright for a minute or two. The large scales are held to the skin by a fleshy nipple-like pimple, which adheres to the base.

~PORPOISES AND WHALES.~

Among the cetaceous inhabitants of the Chinese waters, one of the most noticeable is the great white porpoise (_Delphinus chinensis_), whose uncouth tumbles attract the traveller’s notice as he sails into the estuary of the Pearl River on his way to Hongkong, and again as he steams up the Yangtsz’ to Hankow. The Chinese fishermen are shy of even holding it in their nets, setting it free at once, and never pursuing it; they call it _peh-kí_ and deem its presence favorable to their success. A species of fin-whale (_Balænoptera_) has been described by Swinhoe, which ranges the southern coast from the shores of Formosa to Hainan. Its presence between Hongkong and Amoy induced some foreigners to attempt a fishery in those waters, but the yield of oil and bone was too small for their outlay. The native fishermen join their efforts in the winter, when it resorts to the seas near Hainan, going out in fleets of small boats from three to twenty-five tons burden each, fifty boats going together. The line is about three hundred and fifty feet long, made of native hemp, and fastened to the mast, the end leading over the bow. The harpoon has one barb, and is attached to a wooden handle; through an eye near the socket, the line is so fastened along the handle, that when the whale begins to strain upon it, the handle draws out upon the line, leaving only the barb buried in the skin. The boat is sailed directly upon the fish, and the harpooner strikes from the bow just behind the blow-hole. As soon as the fish is struck the sail is lowered, the rudder unshipped, and the boat allowed to drag stern foremost until the prey is exhausted. Other boats come up to assist, and half a dozen harpoons soon dispatch it. The species most common there yield about fifty barrels each; the oil, flesh, and bone are all used for food or in manufactures. The fish resort to the shallow waters in those seas for food, and to roll and rub on the banks and reefs, thus ridding themselves of the barnacles and insects which torment them; they are often seen leaping entirely out of water, and falling back perpendicularly against the hard bottom.[187]

The Yellow Sea affords a species of cow-fish, or round-headed cachalot (_Globicephalus Rissii_), which the Japanese capture.[188] Seals have been observed on the coast of Liautung, but nothing is known of their species or habits; the skins are common and cheap in the Peking market. Native books speak of a marine animal in Koko-nor, from which a rare medicine is obtained, that probably belongs to this family.

This imperfect account of the mammalia known to exist in China has been drawn from the lists and descriptions inserted in the zoölogical periodicals of Europe, and may serve to indicate the extent and richness of the field yet to be investigated. The lists of Swinhoe and David alone contain nearly two hundred species, and within the past ten years scores more have been added, but have not exhausted the new and unexplored zoölogical regions. The emperors of the Mongol dynasty were very fond of the chase, and famous for their love of the noble amusement of falconry; Marco Polo says that Kublai employed no less than seventy thousand attendants in his hawking excursions. Falcons, kites, and other birds were taught to pursue their quarry, and the Venetian speaks of eagles trained to stoop at wolves, and of such size and strength that none could escape their talons.[189] Ranking has collected[190] a number of notices of the mode and sumptuousness of the field sports of the Mongols in China and India, but they convey little more information to the naturalist, than that the game was abundant and comprised a vast variety. Many species of accipitrine birds are described in Chinese books, but they are spoken of so vaguely that nothing definite can be learned from the notices. Few of them are now trained for sport by the Chinese, except a kind of sparrow-hawk to amuse dilettanti hunters in showing their skill in catching small birds. The fondness for sport in the wilds of Manchuria which the old emperors encouraged two centuries ago has all died out among their descendants.

Within the last fifteen years a greater advance has been made in the knowledge of the birds of China than in any other branch of its natural history, perhaps owing somewhat to their presenting themselves for capture to the careful observer. The list of described species already numbers over seven hundred, of which the careful paper of the lamented Swinhoe, in the _Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society_ for May, 1871, gives the names of six hundred and seventy-five species, and M. David’s list, in the _Nouvelles Archives_ for 1871, gives four hundred and seventy as the number observed north of the River Yangtsz’. The present sketch must confine itself to selecting a few of the characteristic birds of the country, for this part of its fauna is as interesting and peculiar as the mammalia.

~BIRDS OF PREY.~

Among birds of prey are vultures, eagles, and ernes, all of them widespread and well known. One of the fishing-eagles (_Haliætus macei_) lives along the banks of the bend of the Yellow River in the Ortous country. The golden eagle is still trained for the chase by Mongols; Atkinson accompanied a party on a hunt. “We had not gone far,” he says, “when several large deer rushed past, bounding over the plain about three hundred yards from us. In an instant the barkut was unhooded and his shackles removed, when he sprung from his perch and soared on high. He rose to a considerable height, and seemed to poise for a minute, gave two or three flaps with his wings, and swooped off in a straight line for the prey. I could not see his wings move, but he went at a fearful rate, and all of us after the deer; when we were about two hundred yards off, the bird struck the deer, and it gave one bound and fell. The barkut had struck one talon in his neck, the other into his back, and was tearing out his liver. The Kirghis sprung from his horse, slipped the hood over the eagle’s head and the shackles on his legs, and easily took him off, remounting and getting ready for another flight.”[191] Other smaller species are trained to capture or worry hares, foxes, and lesser game.

The falcons which inhabit the gate-towers and trees in Peking form a peculiar feature of the place, from their impudence in foraging in the streets and markets, snatching things out of the hands of people, and startling one by their responsive screams. Much quarrelling goes on between them and the crows and magpies for the possession of old nests as the spring comes on. Their services as scavengers insures them a quiet residence in their eyries on the gate-towers. Six sorts of harriers (_Circus_), with various species of falcons, bustards, gledes, and sparrow-hawks, are enumerated. The family of owls is well represented, and live ones are often exposed for sale in the markets; its native name of ‘cat-headed hawk’ (_mao-’rh-tao ying_) suggests the likeness of the two. Out of the fifty-six species of accipitrine birds, the hawks are much the most numerous.

~SWALLOWS, THRUSHES, LARKS, ETC.~

The great order of Passerinæ has its full share of beautiful and peculiar representatives, and over four hundred species have been catalogued. The night-hawks have only three members, but the swallows count up to fifteen species. Around Peking they gather in vast numbers, year after year, in the gate-towers, and that whole region was early known by the name of _Yen Kwoh_, or ‘Land of Swallows.’ The immunity granted by the natives to this twittering, bustling inmate of their houses has made it a synonym for domestic life; the phrase _yin yen_ (_lit._ to ‘drink swallows’) means to give a feast. The family of king-fishers contains several most exquisitely colored birds, and multitudes of the handsome ones, like the turquoise king-fisher (_Halcyon smyrnensis_), are killed by the Chinese for the sake of the plumage. Beautiful feather-work ornaments are made from this at Canton. The hoopoe, bee-eater, and cuckoo are not uncommon; the first goes by the name of the _shan ho-shang_, or ‘country priest,’ from its color. Six species of the last have been recognized, and its peculiar habits of driving other birds from their nests has made it well known to the people, who call it _ku-ku_ for the same reason as do the English. On the upper Yangtsz’ the short-tailed species makes its noisy agitated flight in order to draw off attention from its nest. The Chinese say it weeps blood as it bewails its mate all night long. The _Cucutus striatus_ varies so greatly in different provinces that it has much perplexed naturalists; all of them are only summer visitants.

The habit of the shrike of impaling its prey on thorns and elsewhere before devouring it has been noticed by native writers; no less than eleven species have been observed to cross the country in their migrations from Siberia to the Archipelago. Of the nuthatches, tree and wall creepers, wrens, and chats, there is a large variety, and one species of willow-wren (_Sylvia borealis_) has been detected over the entire eastern hemisphere; six sorts of redstarts (_Ruticilla_) are spread over the provinces.

Among the common song birds reared for the household, the thrush and lark take precedence; their fondness for birds and flowers is one of the pleasant features of Chinese national character. A kind of grayish-yellow thrush (_Garrulax perspicilatus_), called _hwa-mí_, or ‘painted eyebrows,’ is common about Canton, where a well-trained bird is worth several dollars. This genus furnishes six species, but they are not all equally musical; another kind (_Suthoria webbiana_) is kept for its fighting qualities, as it will die before it yields. These and other allied birds furnish the people with much amusement, by teaching them to catch seeds thrown into the air, jump from perches held in the hand, and perform tricks of various kinds. A party of gentlemen will often be seen on the outskirts of a town in mild weather, each one holding his pet bird, and all busily engaged in catching grasshoppers to feed them. The spectacle thrush (_Leucodioptrum_) has its eyes surrounded by a black circle bearing a fancied resemblance to a pair of spectacles; it is not a very sweet songster, but a graceful, lively fellow. The species of wagtail and lark known amount to about a score altogether, but not all of them are equally good singers. The southern Chinese prefer the lark which comes from Chihlí, and large numbers are annually carried south. The shrill notes of the field lark (_Alauda cælivox_ and _arvensis_) are heard in the shops and streets in emulous concert with other kinds--these larks becoming at times well-nigh frantic with excitement in their struggles for victory. The Chinese name of _peh-ling_, or ‘hundred spirits,’ given to the Mongolian lark, indicates the reputation it has earned as an active songster; and twenty-five dollars is not an uncommon price for a good one.[192]

~MAGPIES AND PIGEONS.~

The tits (_Parus_) and reedlings (_Emberiza_), together with kindred genera, are among the most common small birds, fifteen or twenty species of each having been noticed. In the proper season the latter are killed for market in such numbers as to excite surprise that they do not become extinct. In taking many of the warblers, orioles, and jays, for rearing or sale as fancy birds, the Chinese are very expert in the use of birdlime. In all parts of the land, the pie family are deemed so useful as scavengers that they are never molested, and in consequence become very common. The magpie is a favorite bird, as its name, _hí tsioh_, or ‘joyous bird,’ indicates, and occurs all over the land. Ravens, choughs, crows, and blackbirds keep down the insects and vermin and consume offal. The palace grounds and inclosures of the nobility in Peking are common resorts for these crows, where they are safe from harm in the great trees. Every morning myriads of them leave town with the dawn, returning at evening with increased cawing and clamor, at times actually darkening the sky with their flocks. A pretty sight is occasionally seen when two or three thousand young crows assemble just at sunset in mid-air to chase and play with each other. The crow is regarded as somewhat of a sacred bird, either from a service said to have been rendered by one of his race to an ancestor of the present dynasty, or because he is an emblem of filial duty, from a notion that the young assist their parents when disabled. The owl, on the other hand, has an odious name because it is stigmatized as the bird which eats its dam. One member of the pie family deserving mention is the long-tailed blue jay of Formosa (_Urocissa_), remarkable for its brilliant plumage. Another, akin to the sun birds (_Æthopyga dabryi_), comes from Sz’chuen, a recent discovery. The body is red, the head, throat, and each side of the neck a brilliant violet, belly yellow, wings black with the primaries tinted green along the edge, and the feathers long, tapering, of a black or steel blue.

The _Mainah_, or Indian mino (_Acridotheus_), known by its yellow carbuncles, which extend like ears from behind the eye, is reared, as are also three species of _Munia_, at Canton. Sparrows abound in every province around houses, driving away other birds, and entertaining the observer by their quarrels and activity. Robins, ouzels, and tailor-birds are not abundant. None of the humming-birds or birds of paradise occur, and only one species has hitherto been seen of the parrot group. Woodpeckers (_Picus_) are of a dozen species, and the wryneck occasionally attracts the eye of a sportsman. The canary is reared in great numbers, being known under the names of ‘white swallow’ and ‘time sparrow;’ the chattering Java sparrow and tiny avedavat are also taught little tricks by their fanciers, in compensation for their lack of song. The two or three proper parrots are natives of Formosa.

The family of pigeons (_Columbidæ_) is abundantly represented in fourteen species, and doves form a common household bird; their eggs are regarded as proper food to prevent small-pox, and sold in the markets, being also cooked in birdnest and other kinds of soups. The Chinese regard the dove as eminently stupid and lascivious, but grant it the qualities of faithfulness, impartiality, and filial duty. The cock is said to send away its mate on the approach of rain, and let her return to the nest with fine weather. They have an idea that it undergoes periodic metamorphoses, but disagree as to the form it takes, though the sparrow-hawk has the preference.[193] The bird is most famed, however, for its filial duty, arising very probably from imperfect observations of the custom of feeding its young with the macerated contents of its crop; the wood pigeon is said to feed her seven young ones in one order in the morning, and reversing it in the evening. Its note tells the husbandman when to begin his labors, and the decorum observed in the nests and cotes of all the species teach men how to govern a family and a state. The visitor to Peking is soon attracted by the æolian notes proceeding from doves which circle around their homes for a short time (forty or fifty or less in a flock), and then settle. These birds are called _pan-tien kiao-jin_, or ‘mid-sky houris,’ and their weird music is caused by ingenious wooden whistles tied on the rumps of two or three of the flock, which lead the others and delight themselves. Carrier pigeons are used to some extent, and training them is a special mystery. One of the prettiest sort is the rose pigeon, and half a dozen kinds of turtles enliven the village groves with their gentle notes and peculiar plumage.

No tribe of birds in China, however, equals the Gallinaceous for its beauty, size, and novelty, furnishing some of the most elegant and graceful birds in the world, and yet none of them have become domesticated for food. As a connecting link between this tribe and the last is the sand-grouse of the desert (_Syrrhaptis paradoxus_), whose singular combination attracted Marco Polo’s eye. “This bird, the _barguerlac_, on which the falcons feed,” says he, “is as big as a partridge, has feet like a parrot’s, tail like a swallow’s, and is strong in flight.”[194] Abbé Huc speaks of the immense flocks which scour the plateau.

~VARIETIES OF PHEASANTS.~

The gold and silver pheasants are reared without trouble in all the provinces, and have so long been identified with the ornithology of China as to be regarded as typical of its grotesque and brilliant fauna. Among other pheasants may be mentioned the Impeyan, Reeves, Argus, Medallion, Amherst, l’Huys, and Pallas, each one vieing with the other for some peculiarly graceful feature of color and shape, so that it is hard to decide which is the finest. The Amherst pheasant has the bearing, the elegance, and the details of form like the gold pheasant, but the neck, shoulders, back and wing covers are of a sparkling metallic green, and each feather ends in a belt of velvet black. A little red crest allies it to the gold pheasant, and a pretty silvery ruff with a black band, a white breast and belly, and a tail barred with brown, green, white, and red bands, complete the picturesque dress. Hidden away in these Tibetan wilds are other pheasants that dispute the palm for beauty, among which four species of the eared pheasant (_Crossoptilon_) attract notice. One is of a pure white, with a black tail curled up and spread out like a plume, and is well called the snow pheasant. Another is the better known Pallas pheasant, nearly as large as a turkey, distinguished by ear-like appendages or wattles behind the head, and a red neck above a white body, whence its native name of _ho-kí_, or ‘fire hen.’ Another genus (_Lophophorus_) contains some elegant kinds, of which the l’Huys pheasant is new, and noted for a coppery-green tail bespangled with white. The longer known Reeves pheasant is sought for by the natives for the sake of its white and yellow-barred tail feathers, which are used by play actors to complete a warrior’s dress; Col. Yule proves a reference to it in Marco Polo from this part of its plumage, which the Venetian states to be ten palms in length--not far beyond the truth, as they have been seen seven feet long.[195] It is a long time for a bird of so much beauty to have been unknown, from 1350 to 1808, when Mr. Thomas Beale procured a specimen in Canton, and sent others to England in 1832; Mr. Reeves took it thither, and science has recorded it in her annals. As New Guinea is the home of the birds of paradise, so do the Himalayas contain most of these superb pheasants and francolins, each tribe serving as a foil and comparison with the Creator’s handiwork in the other.

The island of Formosa has furnished a second species, Swinhoe’s pheasant, of the same genus as the silver pheasant (_Euplocamus_), and another smaller kind (_Phasianus formosanus_); the list is also increased by fresh acquisitions from Yunnan and Cochinchina through Dr. Anderson. This is not, however, the place where we may indulge in details respecting all of these gorgeous birds; we conclude, then, with the Medallion, or horned pheasant. It has a “beautiful membrane of resplendent colors on the neck, which is displayed or contracted according as the cock is more or less roused. The hues are chiefly purple, with bright red and green spots, which vary in intensity according to the degree of excitement.”

The peacock, though not a native, is reared in all parts; it bears the name of _kung tsioh_, sometimes rendered ‘Confucius’ bird,’ though it is more probable that the name means the great or magnificent bird. The use of the tail feathers to designate official rank, which probably causes a large consumption of them, does not date previous to the present dynasty. Poultry is reared in immense quantities, but the assortment in China does not equal in beauty, excellence, and variety the products of Japanese culture. The silken cock, the vane of whose plume is so minutely divided as to resemble curly hair, is probably the same sort with that described by some writers as having wool like sheep. The Mongols succeed very well in rearing the tall, Shanghai breed, and their uniform cold winter enables them to preserve frozen flesh without much difficulty. The smaller gallinaceous birds already described, grouse, quails, francolins, partridges, sand-snipe, etc., amount to a score or more species, ranging all over the Empire. The red partridge is sometimes tamed to keep as a house bird with the fowls. The Chinese quail (_Coturnix_) has a brown back, sprinkled with black spots and white lines, blackish throat and chestnut breast. It is reared for fighting in south China, and, like its bigger Gallic rival, is soon eaten if it allows itself to be beaten.

~FAMILY OF WADERS IN CHINA.~

The widespread family of waders sends a few of its representatives from Europe to China, but most of the members are Oriental. The marshes and salt lakes of Mongolia attract enormous numbers of migratory birds in summer to rear their young in safety, in the midst of abundant food. Col. Prejevalsky watched the arrival of vast flocks early in February, and thus describes their appearance: “For days together they sped onward, always from the W.S.W., going further east in search of open water, and at last settling down among the open pools; their favorite haunts were the flat mud banks overgrown with low saline bushes. Here every day vast flocks would congregate toward evening, crowding among the ice; the noise they made on rising was like a hurricane, and at a distance they resembled a thick cloud. Flocks of one, two, three, and even five thousand, followed one another in quick succession, hardly a minute apart. Tens and hundreds of thousands, even millions of birds appeared at Lob-nor during the fortnight ending the 21st of February, when the flight was at its height. What prodigious quantities of food must be necessary for such numbers!”[196] Wading and web-footed birds all harmlessly mix in these countless hosts, but hawks, eagles, and animals gather too, to prey on them.

Among the noticeable waders of China, the white Manchurian or Montigny crane is one of the finest and largest; it is the official insignia of the highest rank of civilians. Five species of crane (_Grus_) are recognized, and seven of plovers, together with as many more allied genera, including an avocet, bustard, and oyster-catcher. Curlews abound along the flat shores of the Gulf of Pechele, and are so tame that they race up and down with the naked children at low tide, hunting for shell-fish; as the boy runs his arm into the ooze the curlew pokes his long bill up to the eyes in the same hole, each of them grasping a crab. Godwits and sandpipers enliven the coasts with their cries, and seven species of gambets (_Totanus_) give them the largest variety of their family group, next to the snipes (_Tringa_), of which nine are recorded. Herons, egrets, ibis, and night-herons occur, and none of them are discarded for food. At Canton, a pure white egret is often exposed for sale in the market, standing on a shelf the livelong day, with its eyelids sewed together--a pitiable sight. Its slender, elegant shape is imitated by artists in making bronze candlesticks. The singular spoonbill (_Platalea_) is found in Formosa, and the jacana in southwestern China. The latter is described by Gould as “distinguished not less by the grace of its form than its adaptation to the localities which nature has allotted it. Formed for traversing the morass and lotus-covered surface of the water, it supports itself upon the floating weeds and leaves by the extraordinary span of the toes, aided by the unusual lightness of the body.”[197] Gallinules, crakes, and rails add to this list, but the flamingo has not been recorded.

In the last order, sixty-five species of web-footed birds are enumerated by naturalists as occurring in China. The fenny margins of lakes and rivers, and the seacoast marshes, afford food and shelter to flocks of water-fowl. Ten separate species of duck are known, of which four or five are peculiar. The whole coast from Hainan to Manchuria swarms with gulls, terns, and grebes, while geese, swans, and mallards resort to the inland waters and pools to rear their young. Ducks are sometimes caught by persons who first cover their heads with a gourd pierced with holes, and then wade into the water where the birds are feeding; these, previously accustomed to empty calabashes floating about on the water, allow the fowler to approach, and are pulled under without difficulty. The wild goose is a favorite bird with native poets. The reputation for conjugal fidelity has made its name and that of the mandarin duck emblems of that virtue, and a pair of one or the other usually forms part of wedding processions. The epithet _mandarin_ is applied to this beautiful fowl, and also to a species of orange, simply because of their excellence over other varieties of the same genus, and not, as some writers have inferred, because they are appropriated to officers of government.

The _yuen-yang_, as the Chinese call this duck, is a native of the central provinces. It is one of the most variegated birds known, vieing with the humming-birds and parrots in the diversified tints of its plumage, if it does not equal them for brilliancy. The drake is the object of admiration, his partner being remarkably plain, but during the summer season he also loses much of his gay vesture. Mr. Bennet tells a pleasant story in proof of the conjugal fidelity of these birds, the incidents of which occurred in Mr. Beale’s aviary at Macao. A drake was stolen one night, and the duck displayed the strongest marks of despair at her loss, retiring into a corner and refusing all nourishment, as if determined to starve herself to death from grief. Another drake undertook to comfort the disconsolate widow, but she declined his attentions, and was fast becoming a martyr to her attachment, when her mate was recovered and restored to her. Their reunion was celebrated by the noisiest demonstrations of joy, and the duck soon informed her lord of the gallant proposals made to her during his absence; in high dudgeon, he instantly attacked the luckless bird which would have supplanted him, and so maltreated him as to cause his death.

~BEALE’S AVIARY.~

The aviary here mentioned was for many years, up to 1838, one of the principal attractions of Macao. Its owner, Mr. Thomas Beale, had erected a wire cage on one side of his house, having two apartments, each of them about fifty feet high, and containing several large trees; small cages and roosts were placed on the side of the house under shelter, and in one corner a pool afforded bathing conveniences to the water-fowl. The genial climate obviated the necessity of any covering, and only those species which would agree to live quietly together were allowed the free range of the two apartments. The great attraction of the collection was a living bird of paradise, which, at the period of the owner’s death, in 1840, had been in his possession eighteen years, and enjoyed good health at that time. The collection during one season contained nearly thirty specimens of pheasants, and besides these splendid birds, there were upward of one hundred and fifty others, of different sorts, some in cages, some on perches, and others going loose in the aviary. In one corner a large cat had a hole, where she reared her young; her business was to guard the whole from the depredations of rats. A magnificent peacock from Damaun, a large assortment of macaws and cockatoos, a pair of magpies, another of the superb crowned pigeons (_Goura coronata_), one of whom moaned itself to death on the decease of its mate, and several Nicobar ground pigeons, were also among the attractions of this curious and valuable collection.

Four or five kinds of grebe and loon frequent the coast, of which the _Podiceps cristatus_, called _shui nu_, or ‘water slave,’ is common around Macao. The same region affords sustenance to the pelican, which is seen standing motionless for hours on the rocks, or sailing on easy wing over the shallows in search of food. Its plumage is nearly a pure white, except the black tips of the wings; its height is about four feet, and the expanse of the wings more than eight feet. The bill is flexible like whalebone, and the pouch susceptible of great dilatation. Gulls abound on the northeast coasts, and no one who has seen it can forget the beautiful sight on the marshes at the entrance of the Pei ho, where myriads of white gulls assemble to feed, to preen, and to quarrel or scream--the bright sun rendering their plumage like snow. The albatross, black tern, petrel, and noddy increase the list of denizens in Chinese waters, but offer nothing of particular interest.[198]

~THE KÍ-LIN AND FUNG-HWANG.~

There are four fabulous animals which are so often referred to by the Chinese as to demand a notice. The _kí-lin_ is one of these and is placed at the head of all hairy animals; as the _fung-hwang_ is pre-eminent among feathered races; the dragon and tortoise among the scaly and shelly tribes; and _man_ among naked animals! The naked, hairy, feathered, shelly, and scaly tribes constitute the quinary system of ancient Chinese naturalists. The _kí-lin_ is pictured as resembling a stag in its body and a horse in its hoofs, but possessing the tail of an ox and a parti-colored or scaly skin. A single horn having a fleshy tip proceeds out of the forehead. Besides these external marks to identify it, the _kí-lin_ exhibits great benevolence of disposition toward other living animals, and appears only when wise and just kings, like Yau and Shun, or sages like Confucius, are born, to govern and teach mankind. The Chinese description presents many resemblances to the popular notices of the unicorn, and the independent origin of their account adds something to the probability that a single-horned equine or cervine animal has once existed.[199]

Cuvier expresses the opinion that Pliny’s description of the Arabian phœnix was derived from the golden pheasant, though others think the Egyptian plover is the original type. From his likening it to an eagle for size, having a yellow neck with purple, a blue tail varied with red feathers, and a richly feathered tufted head, it is more probable that the Impeyan pheasant was Pliny’s type. The Chinese _fung-hwang_, or phœnix, is probably based on the Argus pheasant. It is described as adorned with every color, and combines in its form and motions whatever is elegant and graceful, while it possesses such a benevolent disposition that it will not peck or injure living insects, nor tread on growing herbs. Like the _kí-lin_, it has not been seen since the halcyon days of Confucius, and, from the account given of it, seems to have been entirely fabulous. The etymology of the characters implies that it is the emperor of all birds. One Chinese author describes it “as resembling a wild swan before and a unicorn behind; it has the throat of a swallow, the bill of a cock, the neck of a snake, the tail of a fish, the forehead of a crane, the crown of a mandarin drake, the stripes of a dragon, and the vaulted back of a tortoise. The feathers have five colors, which are named after the five cardinal virtues, and it is five cubits in height; the tail is graduated like Pandean pipes, and its song resembles the music of that instrument, having five modulations.” A beautiful ornament for a lady’s head-dress is sometimes made in the shape of the _fung-hwang_, and somewhat resembles a similar ornament, imitating the vulture, worn by the ladies of ancient Egypt.

~THE LUNG, OR DRAGON.~

The _lung_, or dragon, is a familiar object on articles from China. It furnishes a comparison among them for everything terrible, imposing, and powerful; and being taken as the imperial coat of arms, consequently imparts these ideas to his person and state. The type of the dragon is probably the boa-constrictor or sea-serpent, or other similar monster, though the researches of geology have brought to light such a near counterpart of the _lung_ in the iguanadon as to tempt one to believe that this has been the prototype. There are three dragons, the _lung_ in the sky, the _lí_ in the sea, and the _kiao_ in the marshes. The first is the only _authentic_ species, according to the Chinese; it has the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit, ears of a cow, neck of a snake, belly of a frog, scales of a carp, claws of a hawk, and palm of a tiger. On each side of the mouth are whiskers, and its beard contains a bright pearl; the breath is sometimes changed into water and sometimes into fire, and its voice is like the jingling of copper pans. The dragon of the sea occasionally ascends to heaven in water-spouts, and is the ruler of all oceanic phenomena.[200] The dragon is worshipped and feared by Chinese fishermen, and their _lung-wang_, or ‘dragon king,’ answers to Neptune in western mythology; perhaps the ideas of all classes toward it is a modified relic of the widespread serpent worship of ancient times. The Chinese suppose that elfs, demons, and other supernatural beings often transform themselves into snakes; and M. Julien has translated a fairy story of this sort, called _Blanche et Bleue_. The _kwei_, or tortoise, has so few fabulous qualities attributed to it that it hardly comes into the list; it was, according to the story, an attendant on Pwanku when he chiselled out the world. A semi-classical work, the _Shan-hai King_, or ‘Memoirs upon the Mountains and Seas,’ contains pictures and descriptions of these and kindred monsters, from which the people now derive strange notions respecting them, the book having served to embody and fix for the whole nation what the writer anciently found floating about in the popular legends of particular localities.

A species of alligator (_A. sinensis_) has been described by Dr. A. Fauvel in the _N. C. Br. R. A. Soc. Journal_, No. XIII., 1879, in which he gives many historical and other notices of its existence. Crocodiles are recorded as having been seen in the rivers of Kwangtung and Kwangsí, but none of this family attain a large size.

Marco Polo’s account of the huge serpent of Yunnan,[201] having two forelegs near the head, and one claw like that of a lion or hawk on each, and a mouth big enough to swallow a man whole, referring no doubt to the crocodile, is a good instance of the way in which truth and fable were mingled in the accounts of those times. The flesh is still eaten by the Anamese, as he says it was in his day. A gigantic salamander, analogous to the one found in Japan (the _Sieboldia_), has suggested it as the type of the dragon which figures on the Chinese national flag. Small lizards abound in the southern parts, and the variety and numbers of serpents, both land and water, found in the maritime provinces, are hardly exceeded in any country in the world; they are seldom poisonous. A species of naja is the only venomous snake yet observed at Chusan, and the hooded cobra is one of the few yet found around Canton. Another species frequents the banks, and is driven out of the drains and creeks by high water into the houses. A case is mentioned by Bennet of a Chinese who was bitten, and to whose wound the mashed head of the reptile had been applied as a poultice, a mode of treatment which probably accelerated his death by mixing more of the poison diluted in the animal’s blood with the man’s own blood. It is, however, rare to hear of casualties from this source. This snake is called ‘black and white,’ from being marked in alternate bands of those two colors. A species of acrochordon, remarkable for its abrupt, short tail, has been noticed near Macao.

It is considered felicitous by the Buddhist priests to harbor snakes around their temples; and though the natives do not play with poisonous serpents like the Hindoos, they often handle or teach them simple tricks. The common frog is taken in great numbers for food. Tortoises and turtles from fresh and salt water are plenty along the coast, while both the emys and trionyx are kept in tubs in the streets, where they grow to a large size. An enormous carnivorous tortoise inhabits the waters of Chehkiang near the ocean. The natives have strange ideas concerning the hairy turtle of Sz’chuen, and regard it as excellent medicine; it is now known that the supposed hair consists of confervæ, whose spores, lodged on the shell, have grown far beyond the animal’s body.

~ICHTHYOLOGY OF CHINA.~

The ichthyology of China is one of the richest in the world, though it may be so more from the greater proportion of food furnished by the waters than from any real superabundance of the finny tribes. The offal thrown from boats near cities attracts some kinds to those places, and gives food and employment to multitudes. Several large collections of fishes have been made in Canton, and Mr. Reeves deposited one of the richest in the British Museum, together with a series of drawings made by native artists from living specimens; they have been described by Sir John Richardson in the _Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, for 1845_. In this paper he enumerates one hundred and ninety genera and six hundred and seventy-one species, nearly all of which are marine or come out to sea at certain times. Since it was prepared great accessions to this branch have been made from the inland waters, so that probably a thousand sorts in all have been observed. The salmon and cod families are comparatively scarce, but the mackerel, goby, and herring families are very abundant. The variety of fish is so great in Macao, that if one is willing to eat all that are brought to market, as the Chinese do (including the sharks, torpedoes, gudgeons, etc.), one can have a different species every day in the year. It may with truth be said that the Chinese eat nearly every living thing found in the water, some of the hideous fishing frogs or gurnards alone excepted.

The cartilaginous fishes, sharks, rays, and saw-fish, are abundant on the sea-coast. The sturgeon is not common at the south, but in the winter it is brought from the Songari and other rivers to Peking for the imperial table, being highly prized by Chinese epicures. There is found in the Yangtsz’ a singular species of sturgeon, the _yiu yü_, which lies under the banks in still water and sucks its prey into a sac-like mouth projecting like a cusp under the long snout; it has no scales, and is four feet long. Common sturgeon, weighing a thousand pounds, are caught in this river. The hammer-headed and zebra shark (_Cestracion zebra_) are seen in the markets at Macao; also huge skates, some of them measuring five feet across; the young of all these species are regarded as particularly good eating. A kind of torpedo (_Narcine lingula_) is not uncommon on the southern coast, but the natives do not seem to be aware of any electrical properties. It is said that the fishermen sometimes destroy the shark by boiling a melon and throwing it out as a bait; when swallowed, the heat kills the fish. The true cod has not been observed on the Chinese coast, but several species of serrani (as _Plectropoma susuki_, _Serranus shihpan_, _Megachir_, etc.), generally called _shih-pan_ by the natives, and garoupa by foreigners, are common off Canton, and considered to be most delicate fare. Another fine fish is the _Polynemus tetradactylus_, or bynni-carp, often called salmon by foreigners; isinglass is prepared from its skin. The pomfret, or _tsang yü_ (_Stromateus argenteus_), is a good pan-fish, but hardly so delicate as the sole, many fine species of which abound along the whole coast. Besides these, two or three species of mackerel, the _Sciœna lucida_, an ophicephalus, the mullet, and the ‘white rice fish’ occur. The shad is abundant off the Yangtsz’, and is superior to the American species; Chinese epicures will sometimes pay fifty dollars for the first one of the season.

The carp family (_Cyprinidæ_) is very abundant in the rivers and lakes of China, and some species are reared in fish-pools and tubs to a monstrous size; fifty-two species are mentioned in Richardson’s list. The gold-fish is the most celebrated, and has been introduced into Europe, where it was first seen toward the end of the seventeenth century. The Chinese say that its native place is Lake Tsau, in the province of Nganhwui. The effects of domestication in changing the natural form of this fish are great; specimens are often seen without any dorsal fin, and the tail and other fins tufted and lobed to such a degree as to resemble artificial appendages or wings rather than natural organs. The eyes are developed till the globe projects beyond the socket like goggles, presenting an extraordinary appearance. Some of them are so fantastic, indeed, that they would be regarded as lusus naturæ were they not so common. The usual color is a ruddy golden hue, but both sexes exhibit a silvery or blackish tint at certain stages of their growth; and one variety, called the silver-fish, retains this shade all its life. The Chinese keep it in their garden ponds, or in earthern jars, in which are placed rocks covered with moss, and overgrown with tufts of ferns, to afford them a retreat from the light. When the females spawn, the eggs must be removed to a shallow vessel, lest the males devour them, where the heat of the sun hatches them; the young are nearly black, but gradually become whitish or reddish, and at last assume a golden or silvery hue. Specimens upward of two feet long have been noticed, and those who rear them emulate each other in producing new varieties.

~METHODS OF REARING FISH.~

The rearing of fish is an important pursuit, the spawn being collected with the greatest care and placed in favorable positions for hatching. The _Bulletin Universel_ for 1829 asserts that in some part of China the spawn so taken is carefully placed in an empty egg-shell and the hole closed; the egg is then replaced in the nest, and, after the hen has sat a few days upon it, reopened, and the spawn placed in vessels of water warmed by the sun, where it soon hatches.

The immense fleets of fishing boats on the Yangtsz’ and its tributaries indicate the finny supplies its waters afford. A species of pipe-fish (_Fistularia immaculata_), of a red color, and the gar-pike, with green bones, are found about Canton; as are also numerous beautiful parrot-fish and sun-fish (_Chætodon_). An ingenious mode of taking its prey is practised by a sort of chætodon, or chelmon; it darts a drop of water at the flies or other insects lighting on the bank near the edge, in such a manner as to knock them off, when they are devoured. All the species of ophicephalus, or _săng yü_, so remarkable for their tenacity of life, are reared in tanks and pools, and are hawked alive through the streets.

Eels, mullets, alewives or file-fish, breams, gudgeons, and many other kinds, are seen in the markets. Few things eaten by the Chinese look more repulsive than the gobies as they lie wriggling in the slime which keeps them alive; one species (_Trypauchen vagina_), called _chu pih yü_, or ‘vermilion pencil-fish,’ is a cylindrical fish, six or eight inches long, of a dark red color; its eyes protrude so that it can see behind, like a giraffe. Some kinds of gobies construct little hillocks in the ooze, with a depression on the top, in which their spawn is hatched by the sun; at low tide they skip about on the banks like young frogs, and are easily captured with the hand. A delicious species of Saurus (_Leucosoma Chinensis_), called _pih fan yü_, or ‘white rice fish,’ and _yin yü_, or silver-fish, ranges from Hakodate to Canton. It is six or eight inches long, the body scaleless and transparent, so that the muscles, intestines, and spinal column can be seen without dissection; the bones of the head are thin, flexible, and diaphanous. Many species of file-fish, sole-fish, anchovy, and eels, are captured on the coast. Vast quantities of dried fish, like the stock fish in Sweden, are sent inland to sell in regions where fish are rare. The most common sorts are the perch, sun-fish, gurnard, and hair-tail (_Trichinrus_).

~SHELL-FISH AND INSECTS OF CHINA.~

Shell-fish and mollusks, both fresh and salt, are abundant in the market. Oysters of a good quality are common along the coast, and a species of mactra, or sand-clam, is fished up near Macao. The Pearl River affords two or three kinds of fresh-water shell-fish (_Mytilus_), and snails (_Voluta_) are plenty in all pools. The crangons, prawns, shrimps, crabs, and other kinds of crustacea met with, are not less abundant than palatable; one species of craw-fish, as large as (but not taking the place of) the lobster, called _lung hai_, or ‘dragon crab,’ together with cuttle-fish of three or four kinds, and the king-crab (_Polyphemus_), are all eaten. The inland waters produce many species of shells, and the new genus theliderma, allied to the unio, was formed by Mr. Benson, of Calcutta, from specimens obtained of a shopkeeper at Canton. The land shells are abundant, especially various kinds of snails (_Helix_, _Lymnea_, etc.); twenty-two species of helix alone were contained in a small collection sent from Peking, in which region all this kind of food is well known. A catalogue of nearly sixty shells obtained in Canton is given in Murray’s _China_,[202] but it is doubtful whether even half of them are found in the country, as the shops there are supplied in a great degree from the Archipelago. Dr. Cantor[203] mentions eighty-eight genera of shells occurring between Canton and Chusan. Pearls are found in China, and Marco Polo speaks of a salt lake, supposed now to be in Yunnan, which produced them in such quantity that the fishery in his day was farmed out and restricted lest they should become too cheap and common. In Chehkiang the natives take a large kind of clam (_Alasmodonta_) and gently attach leaden images of Buddha under the fish, after which it is thrown back into the water. Nacre is deposited over the lead, and after a few months the shells are retaken, cleaned, and then sent abroad to sell as proofs of the power and presence of Buddha. The _Quarterly Review_ speaks of a mode practised by the Chinese of making pearls by dropping a string of small mother-of-pearl beads into the shell, which in a year are covered with the pearly crust. Leeches are much used by native physicians; the hammer-headed leech has been noticed at Chusan.

The insects of China are almost unknown to the naturalist. In Dr. Cantor’s collection, from Chusan, there are fifty-nine genera mentioned, among which tropical forms prevail; there are also six genera of arachnidæ, and the list of spiders could easily be multiplied to hundreds; among them are many showing most splendid coloring. One large and strong species is affirmed to capture small birds on the trees. Locusts sometimes commit extensive ravages, and no part of the land is free from their presence, though their depredations do not usually reach over a great extent of country, or often for two successive years. They are, however, sufficiently troublesome to attract the notice of the government, as the edict against them, inserted in another chapter, proves. Centipedes, scorpions, and some other species in the same order are known, the former being most abundant in the central and western regions, where scorpions are rare.

The most valuable insect is the silkworm, which is reared in nearly every province, and the silk from other wild worms found on the oak and ailantus in Shantung, Sz’chuen, and elsewhere also gathered; the proper silkworm itself has been met with to some extent in northern Shansí and Mongolia. Many other insects of the same order (_Lepidopteræ_) exist, but those sent abroad have been mostly from the province of Kwangtung. Eastward of the city of Canton, on a range of hills called Lofau shan, large butterflies and night moths of immense size and brilliant coloring are captured. One of these insects (_Bombyx atlas_) measures about nine inches across; the ground color is a rich and varied orange brown, and in the centre of each wing there is a triangular transparent spot, resembling a piece of mica. Sphinxes of great beauty and size are common, and in their splendid coloring, rapid noiseless flight from flower to flower, at the close of the day, remind one of the humming-bird. Some families are more abundant than others; the coleopterous exceed the lepidopterous, and the range of particular tribes in each of these is often very limited. The humid regions of Sz’chuen furnished a great harvest of beautiful butterflies to M. David, while the lamellicorn beetles and cerambycidæ are the most common in the north and central parts.

~COLEOPTERÆ AND THE WAX WORM.~

Many tribes of coleopterous insects are abundant, but the number of species yet identified is trifling. Several water beetles, and others included under the same general designation, have been found in collections sold at Canton, but owing to the careless manner in which those boxes are filled, very few specimens are perfect, the antennæ or tarsi being broken. The mole-cricket occurs everywhere. The common cricket is caught and sold in the markets for gambling; persons of all ranks amuse themselves by irritating two of these insects in a bowl, and betting upon the prowess of their favorites. The cicada, or broad locust, is abundant, and its stridulous sound is heard from trees and groves with deafening loudness. Boys tie a straw around the abdomen of the male, so as to irritate the sounding apparatus, and carry it through the streets in this predicament, to the great annoyance of every one. This insect was well known to the Greeks; the ancient distich--

“Happy the cicadas’ lives, For they all have voiceless wives,”

hints at their knowledge of this sexual difference, as well as intimates their opinion of domestic quiet. Again it forms the subject of Meleager’s invocation:

“O shrill-voiced insect! that with dew-drops meet, Inebriate, dost in desert woodlands sing; Perch’d on the spray top with indented feet, Thy dusky body’s echoings harp-like ring.”

The lantern-fly (_Fulgora_) is less common than the cicada. It is easily recognized by its long cylindrical snout, arched in an upward direction, its greenish reticulated elytra, and orange-yellow wings with black extremities; but its appearance in the evening is far from being as luminous as are the fire-fly and glow-worm of South America. The _Peh lah shu_, or ‘white wax tree’ (_Fraxinus chinensis_), affords nourishment to an insect of this order called _Coccus pela_. The larvæ alone furnish the wax, the secretion being the result of disease. Sir Geo. L. Staunton first described the fly from specimens seen in Annam in 1795, where the natives collected a white powder from the bark of the tree on which it occurs. Daniel Hanbury figured the insect and tree with the deposit of crude wax on the limbs, all obtained in Chekhiang province.[204] Baron Richthofen speaks of this industry in Sz’chuen as one furnishing employment to great multitudes. The department of Kia-ting furnishes the best wax, as its climate is warmer than Chingtu. The eggs of the insect are gathered in Kien-chang and Ning-yuen, where the tree flourishes on which it deposits them, and its culture is carefully attended to. The insect lives and breeds on this evergreen, and in April the eggs are collected and carried up to Kia-ting by porters. This journey is mostly performed by night so as to avoid the risk of hatching their loads; 300 eggs weigh one tael. They are instantly placed on the same kind of tree, six or seven balls of eggs done up in palm-leaf bags and hung on the twigs. In a few days the larvæ begin to spread over the branches, but do not touch the leaves; the bark soon becomes incrusted with a white powder, and is not disturbed till August. The loaded branches are then cut off and boiled, when the wax collects on the surface of the water, is skimmed off, and melted again to be poured into pans for sale. A tael’s weight of eggs will produce two or three catties of the translucent, highly crystalline wax; it sells there for five mace a tael and upward. The annual income is reckoned at Tls. 2,000,000.[205] The purposes to which this singular product are applied include all those of beeswax. Pills are ingeniously enclosed in small globes of it, and candles of every size made. Wax is also gathered from wild and domestic bees, but honey is not much used; a casing of wax, colored with vermilion, is used to inclose the tallow of great painted candles set before the idols and tablets.

The _Chinese Herbal_ contains a singular notion, prevalent also in India, concerning the generation of the sphex, or solitary wasp. When the female lays her eggs in the clayey nidus she makes in houses, she encloses the dead body of a caterpillar in it for the subsistence of the worms when they hatch. Those who observed her entombing the caterpillar did not look for the eggs, and immediately concluded that the sphex took the worm for her progeny, and say that as she plastered up the hole of the nest, she hummed a constant song over it, saying, “_Class with me! Class with me!_”--and the transformation gradually took place, and was perfected in its silent grave by the next spring, when a winged wasp emerged to continue its posterity in the same mysterious way.[206]

White ants are troublesome in the warmer parts, and annoy the people there by eating up the coffins in the graves. They form passages under ground, and penetrate upward into the woodwork of houses, and the whole building may become infested with them almost before their existence is suspected. They will even eat their way into fruit trees, cabbages, and other plants, destroying them while in full vigor. Many of the internal arrangements of the nests of bees and ants, and their peculiar instincts, have been described by Chinese writers with considerable accuracy. The composition of the characters for the bee, ant, and mosquito, respectively, denote the _awl_ insect, the _righteous_ insect, and the _lettered_ insect; referring thereby to the sting of the first, the orderly working and subordination of the second, and the letter-like markings on the wings of the latter. Mosquitoes are plenty, and gauze curtains are considered to be a more necessary part of bed furniture than a mattress.

~RESEARCHES IN THE BOTANY OF CHINA.~

The botany of China is rather better known than its zoölogy, though vast and unexplored fields, like that reaching from Canton to Silhet and Assam, still invite the diligent collector to gather, examine, and make known their treasures. One of the earliest authors in this branch was Père Loureiro, a Portuguese for thirty-six years missionary in Cochinchina, and professor of mathematics and physic in the royal palace. He gathered a large herbarium there and in southern Kwangtung, and published his _Flora Cochinchinensis_ in 1790, in which he described one hundred and eighty-four genera and more than three hundred new species. The only other work specially devoted to Chinese botany is Bentham’s _Flora Hongkongensis_, published in 1861. The materials for it were collected by Drs. Hinds, Hance and Harland, Col. Champion, and others, during the previous twenty years, and amounted in all to upward of five thousand specimens, gathered exclusively on the island. Since its publication, Dr. Hance has added to our accurate knowledge of the Chinese flora many new specimens growing in other parts of the Empire, whose descriptions are scattered through various publications. Père David, during his extensive travels in northern China, gathered thousands of specimens which have yet to be carefully described. The Russian naturalists Maximowitch, Bunge, Tatarinov, Bretschneider, Prejevalsky, and others have largely increased our knowledge of the plants of Mongolia, the Amur basin, and the region about Peking. The first named has issued a separate work on the Amur flora, but most of the papers of these scientists are to be found in periodicals. In very early days, China was celebrated for the camphor, varnish, tallow, oil, tea, cassia, dyes, etc., obtained from its plants; and the later monographs of professed botanists, issued since Linneus looked over the two hundred and sixty-four species brought by his pupil Osbeck in 1750, down to the present day, have altogether given immense assistance to a thorough understanding of their nature and value.

Mr. Bentham’s observations on the range of the plants collected in the island of Hongkong represent its flora, in general character, as most like that of tropical Asia, of which it offers, in numerous instances, the northern limit. The damp, wooded ravines on the north and west furnish plants closely allied to those of Assam and Sikkim; while other species, in considerable numbers, have a much more tropical character, extending with little variation over the Archipelago, Malaysia, Ceylon, and even to tropical Africa, but not into India. Within two degrees north of the island these tropical features (so far as is known) almost entirely cease, and out of the one thousand and fifty-six species described in the _Flora Hongkongensis_, only about eighty have been found in Japan; thus indicating that very few of the plants known to range across from the Himalaya to Japan grow south of Amoy. On the twenty-nine square miles forming the area of Hongkong there exists, Mr. Bentham says, a greater number of monotypic genera than in any other flora from an equal area in the world; he gives a comparative table of the floras of Hongkong, Aden and Ischia islands, about equal in extent, showing one thousand and three species growing on the first, ninety-five on the second, and seven hundred and ninety-two on the third. The proportion of woody to herbaceous species in Hongkong is nearly one-half, while in Ischia it is one to eleven; yet Hongkong has actually fewer trees than Ischia. Out of the one thousand and three species of wild plants there, three hundred and ninety-eight also occur in the tropical Asiatic flora, while one hundred and eighty-seven others have been found as well on the mainland; one hundred and fifty-nine are peculiar to the island.

~CONIFERÆ AND GRASSES.~

Many species of coniferæ are floated down to Canton, taken from the Mei ling, or brought from Kwangsí; the timber is used for fuel, but more for rafters and pillars in buildings. The wood of the pride of India is employed for cabinet work; there are also many kinds of fancy wood, some of which are imported, and more are indigenous. The _nan muh_, or southern wood, a magnificent species of laurus common in Sz’chuen, which resists time and insects, is peculiarly valuable, and reserved for imperial use. The cœsalpinia, rose wood, aigle wood, and the camphor, elm, willow, and aspen, are also serviceable in carpentry.

The people collect seaweed to a great extent, using it in the arts and also for food; among these the _Gigartina tenax_ affords an excellent material for glues and varnishes. It is boiled, and the transparent glue obtained is brushed upon very coarse silk or mulberry paper, filling up their substance, and making a transparent covering for lanterns; it is also used as a size for stiffening silks and gauze. This and other kinds of fuci are boiled to a jelly and used for food; it is known in commerce under the name of agar-agar. The thick fronds of the laminaria are gathered on the northern coasts and imported from Japan. Among other cryptogams, the Tartarian lamb (_Aspidium barometz_), so graphically described by Darwin in his _Botanic Garden_, has long been celebrated; it is partly an artificial production of the ingenuity of Chinese gardeners taking advantage of the natural habits of the plant to form it into a shape resembling a sheep or other object.

Among remarkable grasses the zak or saxaul (_Haloxylon_) and the _sulhir_ (_Agriophyllum_), which grow in the sandy parts of the desert of Gobi, should be mentioned. The first is found across the whole length of this arid region, growing on the bare sand, furnishing to the traveller a dry and ready fuel in its brittle twigs, while his camels greedily browse on its leafless but juicy and prickly branches. The Mongols pitch their tents beneath its shelter, seeking for some covert from the wintry winds, and encouraged to dig at its roots for water which has been detained by their succulent nature, a wonderful provision furnished by God in the bleakest desert. The _sulhir_ is even more important, and is the “gift of the desert.” It grows on bare sand, is about two feet high, a prickly saline plant, producing many seeds in September, of a nutritious, agreeable nature, food for man and beast.

The list of gramineous plants cultivated for food is large; the common sorts include rice, wheat, barley, oats, maize, sugar-cane, panic, sorghum, spiked and panicled millet, of each kind several varieties. The grass (_Phragmites_) raised along the river banks is carefully cut and dried, to be woven into floor-matting; a coarser sort, called _atap_, is made of bamboo splints for roofs of huts, awnings, and sheds. In the milder climes of the southern coasts, cheap houses are constructed of these materials. The coarse grass and shrubbery on the hills is cut in the autumn for fuel by the poor; and when the hills are well sheared of their grassy covering, the stubble is set on fire, in order to supply ashes for manuring the next crop--an operation which tends to keep the hills bare of all shrubbery and trees.

~THE BAMBOO--ITS BEAUTY AND USEFULNESS.~

Few persons who have not seen the bamboo growing in its native climes get a full idea from pictures of its grace and beauty. A clump of this magnificent grass will gradually develop by new shoots into a grove, if care be taken to cut down the older stems as they reach full maturity, and not let them flower and go to seed; for as soon as they have perfected the seed, they die down to the root, like other grasses. The stalks usually attain the height of fifty feet, and in the Indian islands often reach seventy feet and upward, with a diameter of ten or twelve inches at the bottom. A road lined with them, with their feathery sprays meeting overhead, presents one of the most beautiful avenues possible to a warm climate.

In China the industry and skill of the people have multiplied and perpetuated a number of varieties (one author contents himself with describing sixty of them), among which are the yellow, the black, the green, the slender sort for pipes, and a slenderer one for writing-pencils, the big-leaved, etc. Its uses are so various that it is not easy to enumerate them all. The shoots come out of the ground nearly full-sized, four to six inches in diameter, and are cut like asparagus to eat as a pickle or a comfit, or by boiling or stewing. Sedentary Buddhist priests raise this lenten fare for themselves or to sell, and extract the tabasheer from the joints of the old culms, to sell as a precious medicine for almost anything which ails you. The roots are carved into fantastic and ingenious images and stands, or divided into egg-shaped divining-blocks to ascertain the will of the gods, or trimmed into lantern handles, canes, and umbrella-sticks.

The tapering culms are used for all purposes that poles can be applied to in carrying, propelling, supporting, and measuring, for which their light, elastic, tubular structure, guarded by a coating of silicious skin, and strengthened by a thick septum at each joint, most admirably fits them. The pillars and props of houses, the framework of awnings, the ribs of mat-sails, and the shafts of rakes are each furnished by these culms. So, also, are fences and all kinds of frames, coops, and cages, the wattles of abatis, and the ribs of umbrellas and fans. The leaves are sewed into rain-cloaks for farmers and sailors, and thatches for covering their huts and boats, pinned into linings for tea-boxes, plaited into immense umbrellas to screen the huckster and his stall from the sun and rain, or into coverings for theatres and sheds. Even the whole lot where a two-story house is building is usually covered in by a framework of bamboo-poles and _attap_--as this leaf covering is called, from its Malay name--all tied together by rattan, and protecting the workmen and their work from sun and rain.

The wood, cut into splints of proper sizes and forms, is woven into baskets of every shape and fancy, sewed into window-curtains and door-screens, plaited into awnings and coverings for tea-chests or sugar-cones, and twisted into cables. The shavings and curled threads aid softer things in stuffing pillows; while other parts supply the bed for sleeping, the chopsticks for eating, the pipe for smoking, and the broom for sweeping. The mattress to lie upon, the chair to sit upon, the table to eat on, the food to eat, and the fuel to cook it with, are also derivable from bamboo. The master makes his ferule from it, the carpenter his foot-measure, the farmer his water-pipes, irrigating wheels, and straw-rakes, the grocer his gill and pint cups, and the mandarin his dreaded instrument of punishment. This last use is so common that the name of the plant itself has come in our language to denote this application, and the poor wretch who is _bambooed_ for his crimes is thus taught that laws cannot be violated with impunity.

The paper to write on, the book to study from, the pencil to write with, the cup to hold the pencils, and the covering of the lattice-window instead of glass are all indebted to this grass in their manufacture. The shaft of the soldier’s spear, and oftentimes the spear altogether, the plectrum for playing the lute, the reed in the native organ, the skewer to fasten the hair, the undershirt to protect the body, the hat to screen the head, the bucket to draw the water, and the easy-chair to lounge on, besides cages for birds, fish, bees, grasshoppers, shrimps, and cockroaches, crab-nets, fishing-poles, sumpitans or shooting-tubes, flutes, fifes, fire-holders, etc., etc., are among the things furnished from this plant, whose beauty when growing is commensurate to its usefulness when cut down. A score or two of bamboo-poles for joists and rafters, fifty fathoms of rattan ropes, with plenty of palm-leaves and bamboo-matting for roof and sides, supply material for a common dwelling in the south of China. Its cost is about five dollars. Those houses built over creeks, or along the low banks of rivers and sea-beaches, are elevated a few feet, and their floors are neatly made of split bamboos, which allow the water to be seen through. The decks, masts, yards, and framework of the mat-sails of the small boats of the islanders in the Archipelago are all more or less made of this useful plant. Throughout the south of Asia it enters into the daily life of the people in their domestic economy more than anything else, or than any other one thing does in any part of the world. The Japanese supply us with fans neatly formed, ribs and handle, from a single branch of bamboo, and covered with paper made from mulberry bark, while their skill is shown also in the exquisite covering of fine bamboo threads woven around cups and saucers.[207]

~PALMS, YAMS, PLANTAINS, ETC.~

In ancient times the date palm was cultivated in China, but is now unknown. The cocoanut flourishes in Hainan and the adjacent coasts, where its fruit, leaves, and timber are much used. A great variety of utensils are carved from the nut-case, and ropes spun from the coir, while the cultivators drink the toddy made from the juice. The fan palm (_Chamærops_) is the common palm of the country, two species being cultivated for the wiry fibres in the leaf-sheaths, and for their broad leaves. This fibre is far more useful than that from cocoanut husks, as it is longer and smoother, and is woven into ropes, mats, cloaks, and brushes. The tree is spread over the greater part of the provinces, one of their most ornamental and useful trees. Another sort (_Caryota_) also furnishes a fibre employed in the same way, but its timber is more valuable; sedan thills are made of its wood. Still another is the talipot palm (_Borassus_), from whose leaves a material for writing books upon was once produced, as is the case now in Siam.[208]

Several species of Aroideæ are cultivated, among which the _Caladium cuculatum_, _Arum esculentum_, and _Indicum_ are common. The tuberous farinaceous roots of the _Sagittaria sinensis_ are esteemed; the roots of these plants, and of the water-chestnut, are manufactured into a powder resembling arrow-root. The sweet flag (_Calamus_) is used in medicine for its spicy warmth. The stems of a species of Juncus are collected and the pith carefully taken out and dried for the wicks of water-lamps, and the inner layers of the pith hats so generally worn in southern China.

The extensive group of lillies contains many splendid ornaments of the conservatory and garden, natives of China; some are articles of food. The _Agapanthus_, or blue African lily, four species of _Hemerocallis_, or day lily, and the fragrant tuberose, are all common about Canton; the latter is widely cultivated for its blossoms to scent fancy teas. Eight or ten species of Lilium (among which the speckled tiger lily and the unsullied white are conspicuous) also add their gay beauties to the gardens; while the modest Commelina, with its delicate blue blossoms, ornaments the hedges and walks. Many alliaceous plants, the onion, cives, garlic, etc., belong to this group; and the Chinese relish them for the table as much as they admire the flowers of their beauteous and fragrant congeners for bouquets. The singular red-leaved iron-wood (_Dracæna_) forms a common ornament of gardens.

The yam, or _ta-shu_ (_i.e._, ‘great tuber’), is not much raised, though its wholesome qualities as an article of food are well understood. The same group (_Musales_) to which the yam belongs furnishes the custard-apple, one of the few fruits which have been introduced from abroad. The Amaryllidæ are represented by many pretty species of Crinum, Nerine, and Amaryllis. Their unprofitable beauty is compensated by the plain but useful plantain, said to stand before the potato and sago palm as producing the greatest amount of wholesome food, in proportion to its size, of any cultivated plant.[209] There are many varieties of this fruit, some of them so acid as to require cooking before eating.

That pleasant stomachic, ginger, is cultivated through all the country, and exposed for sale as a green vegetable, to spice dishes, and largely made into a preserve. The Alpinia and Canna, or Indian shot, are common garden flowers. The large group of Orchideæ has nineteen genera known to be natives of China, among which the air plants (_Vanda_ and _Ærides_) are great favorites. They are suspended in baskets under the trees, and continue to unfold their blossoms in gradual succession for many weeks, all the care necessary being to sprinkle them daily. The true species of Ærides are among the most beautiful productions of the vegetable world, their flowers being arrayed in long racemes of delicate colors and delicious fragrance. The beautiful Bletia, Arundina, Spathoglottis, and Cymbidium are common in damp and elevated places about the islands near Macao and Hongkong.

~FOREST TREES, HEMP, ETC.~

Many species of the pine, cypress, and yew, forming the three subdivisions of cone-bearing plants, furnish a large proportion of the timber and fuel. The larch is not rare, and the _Pinus massoniana_ and _Cunninghamia_ furnish most of the common pine timber. The finest member of this order in China is the white pine (_Pinus bungiana_), peculiar to Chihlí; its trunk is a clear white, and as it annually sheds the bark it always looks as if whitewashed. Some specimens near Peking are said to be a thousand years old. Two members of the genus _Sequoia_, of a moderate size, occur near Tibet. The juniper and thuja are often selected by gardeners to try their skill in forcing them to grow into rude representations of birds and animals, the price of these curiosities being proportioned to their grotesqueness and difficulty. The nuts of the maiden-hair tree (_Salisburia adiantifolia_) are eaten, and the leaves are sometimes put into books as a preservative against insects.

The willow is a favorite plant and grows to a great size, Staunton mentioning some which were fifteen feet in girth; they shade the roads near the capital, and one of them is the true Babylonian willow; the trees are grown for timber and for burning into charcoal. Their leaves, shape, and habits afford many metaphors to poets and writers, much more use being made of the tree in this way, it might almost be said, than any other. The oak is less patronized by fine writers, but the value of its wood and bark is well understood; the country affords several species, one of which, the chestnut oak, is cultivated for the cupules, to be used in dyeing. The galls are used for dyeing and in medicine, and the acorns of some kinds are ground in mills, and the flour soaked in water and made into a farinaceous paste. Some of the missionaries speak of oaks a hundred feet high, but such giants in this family are rare. “One of the largest and most interesting of these trees, which,” writes Abel, “I have called _Quercus densifolia_, resembled a laurel in its shining green foliage. It bore branches and leaves in a thick head, crowning a naked and straight stem; its fruit grew along upright spikes terminating the branches. Another species, growing to the height of fifty feet, bore them in long, pendulous spikes.”

The chestnut, walnut, and hazelnut together furnish a large supply of food. The queer-shaped ovens fashioned in imitation of a raging lion, in which chestnuts are roasted in the streets of Peking, attract the eye of the visitor. The Jack-fruit (_Artocarpus_) is not unknown in Canton, but it is not much used. There are many species of the banian, but none of them produce fruit worth plucking; the Portuguese have introduced the common fig, but it does not flourish. The bastard banian is a magnificent shade tree, its branches sometimes overspreading an area a hundred or more feet across. The walls of cities and dwellings are soon covered with the _Ficus repens_, and if left unmolested its roots gradually demolish them. The paper mulberry (_Broussonetia_) is largely cultivated in the northern provinces, and serves the poor with their chief material for windows. The leaf of the common mulberry is the principal object of its culture, but the fruit is eaten and the wood burned for lampblack to make India-ink.

Hemp (_Cannabis_) is cultivated for its fibres, and the seeds furnish an oil used for household purposes and medicinal preparations; the intoxicating substance called _bang_, made in India, is unknown in China. The family Proteaceæ contains the _Eleococca cordata_, or _wu-tung_, a favorite tree of the Chinese for its beauty, the hard wood it furnishes, and the oil extracted from its seeds. The _Stillingia_ belongs to the same family; this symmetrical tree is a native of all the eastern provinces, where it is raised for its tallow; it resembles the aspen in the form and color of the leaf and in its general contour. The castor-oil is cultivated as a hedge plant, and the seeds are used both in the kitchen and apothecaries’ shop.

The order Hippurinæ furnishes the water caltrops (_Trapa_), the seeds of which are vended in the streets as a fruit after boiling; one native name is ‘buffalo-head fruit,’ which the unopened nuts strikingly resemble. Black pepper is imported, not so much as a spice as for its infusion, to be administered in fevers. The betel pepper is cultivated for its leaves, which are chewed with the betel-nut. The pitcher plant (_Nepenthes_), called pig-basket plant, is not unfrequent near Canton; the leaves, or ascidia, bear no small resemblance to the open baskets employed for carrying hogs.

~RHUBARB, LEGUMINOSÆ, ETC.~

Many species of the tribe _Rumicinæ_ are cultivated as esculent vegetables, among which may be enumerated spinach, green basil, beet, amaranthus, cockscomb, broom-weed (_Kochia_), buckwheat, etc. Two species of Polygonum are raised for the blue dye furnished by the leaves, which is extracted, like indigo, by maceration. Buckwheat is prepared for food by boiling it like millet; one native name means ‘triangular wheat.’ The flour is also employed in pastry. The cockscomb is much admired by the Chinese, whose gardens furnish several splendid varieties. The rhubarb is a member of this useful tribe, and large quantities are brought from Kansuh and Koko-nor, where its habits have lately been observed by Prejevalsky. The root is dug by Chinese and Tanguts during September and October, dried in the shade, and transported by the Yellow River to the coast towns, where Europeans pay from six to ten times its rate among the mountain markets.[210] The Chinese consider the rest of the world dependent on them for tea and rhubarb, whose inhabitants are therefore forced to resort thither to procure means to relieve themselves of an otherwise irremediable costiveness. This argument was made use of by Commissioner Lin in 1840, when recommending certain restrictive regulations to be imposed upon foreign trade, because he supposed merchants from abroad would be compelled to purchase them at any price.

The order _Ilicinæ_, or holly, furnishes several genera of Rhamneæ, whose fruits are often seen on tables. The Zizyphus furnishes the so-called Chinese dates[211] in immense quantities throughout the northern provinces. The fleshy peduncles of the Hovenia are eaten; they are common in the southeastern provinces. The leaves of the _Rhamnus theezans_ are among the many plants collected by the poor as a make-shift for the true tea. The fruit called the Chinese olive, obtained from the Pimela, is totally different from and is a poor substitute for the rich olive of the Mediterranean countries.[212]

The Leguminosæ hold an important place in Chinese botany, affording many esculent vegetables and valuable products. Peas and beans are probably eaten more in China than any other country, and soy is prepared chiefly from the Soja or Dolichos. One of the modes of making this condiment is to skin the beans and grind them to flour, which is mixed with water and powdered gypsum, or turmeric. It is eaten as a jelly or curd, or in cakes, and a meal is seldom spread without it in some form. One genus of this tribe affords indigo, and from the buds and leaves of a species of Colutea a kind of green dye is said to be obtained. Liquorice is esteemed in medicine; and the red seeds of the _Abrus precatorius_ are gathered for ornaments. The Poinciana and Bauhinia are cultivated for their flowers, and the Erythrina and Cassia are among the most magnificent flowering trees in the south.

~FRUIT TREES AND FLOWERING PLANTS.~

The fruits are, on the whole, inferior in flavor and size to those of the same names at the west. Several varieties of pears, plums, peaches, and apricots are known; it is probable that China is the native country of each of these fruits, and some of the varieties equal those found anywhere. Erman[213] mentions an apple or haw which grows in “long bunches and is round, about the size of a cherry, of a red color, and very sweet taste,” found in abundance near Kiakhta. There are numerous species of Amygdalus cultivated for their flowers; and at new year the budding stems of the flowering almond, narcissus, plum, peach, and bell-flower (_Enkianthus reticulatus_) are forced into blossom for exhibition, as indicating good luck the coming year. The apples and quinces are generally destitute of that flavor looked for in them elsewhere, but the _lu-kuh_, or _loquat_, is a pleasant acid spring fruit. The pomegranate is chiefly cultivated for its beauty as a flowering plant; but the guava and Eugenia, or rose-apple, are sold in the market or made into jellies. The rose is a favorite among the Chinese and extensively cultivated; twenty species are mentioned, together with many varieties, as natives of the country; the Banks rose is developed and trained with great skill. The Spiræa or privet, myrtle, Quisqualis, Lawsonia or henna, white, purple, and red varieties of crape-myrtle or Lagerstrœmia, Hydrangea, the passion-flower, and the house-leek are also among the ornamental plants found in gardens. Few trees in any country present a more elegant appearance, when in full flower, than the Lagerstrœmias. The Pride of India and Chinese tamarix are also beautiful flowering trees. Specimens of the Cactus and Cereus, containing fifty or more splendid flowers in full bloom, are not unusual at Macao in August.

The watermelon, cucumber, squash, tomato, brinjal or egg-plant, and other garden vegetables are abundant; the tallow-gourd (_Benincasa cerifera_) is remarkable for having its surface covered with a waxy exudation which smells like rosin. The dried bottle-gourd (_Cucurbita lagenaria_) is tied to the backs of children on the boats to assist them in floating if they should unluckily fall overboard. The fruit and leaves of the papaw, or _muh kwa_, ‘tree melon,’ are eaten after being cooked; the Chinese are aware of the intenerating property of the exhalations from the leaves of this tree, and make use of them sometimes to soften the flesh of ancient hens and cocks, by hanging the newly killed birds in the tree or by feeding them upon the fruit beforehand. The carambola (_Averrhoa_) or tree gooseberry is much eaten by the Chinese, but is not relished by foreigners; the tree itself is also an ornament to any pleasure grounds.

Ginseng is found wild in the forests of Manchuria, where it is collected by detachments of soldiers detailed for this purpose; these regions are regarded as imperial preserves, and the medicine is held as a governmental monopoly. The importation of the American root does not interfere to a very serious degree with the imperial sales, as the Chinese are fully convinced that their own plant is far superior. Among numerous plants of the malvaceous and pink tribes (_Dianthaceæ_) remarkable for their beauty or use, the _Lychnis coronata_, five sorts of pink, the _Althæa Chinensis_, eight species of Hibiscus, and other malvaceous flowers may be mentioned; the cotton tree (_Salmalia_) is common at Canton; the fleshy petals are sometimes prepared as food, and the silky stamens dried to stuff cushions. The _Gossypium herbaceum_ and _Pachyrrhizus_ afford the materials for cotton and grasscloth; both of them are cultivated in most parts of China. The latter is a twining, leguminous plant, cultivated from remote antiquity, and still grown for its fibres, which are woven into linen. The petals of the _Hibiscus rosa-sinensis_ furnish a black liquid to dye the eyebrows, and at Batavia they are employed to polish shoes. The fruits of the _Hibiscus ochra_, or okers, are prepared for the table in a variety of ways.

The _Camellia Japonica_ is allied to the same great tribe as the Hibiscus, and its elegant flowers are as much admired by the people of its native country as by florists abroad; thirty or forty varieties are enumerated, many of them unknown out of China, while Chinese gardeners are likewise ignorant of a large proportion of those found in our conservatories. This flower is cultivated solely for its beauty, but other species of Camellia are raised for their seeds, the oil expressed from them being serviceable for many household and mechanical purposes. From the fibres of a species of Waltheria, a plant of the same tribe, a fine cloth is made; and the _Pentapetes Phœnicia_, or ‘noon flower,’ is a common ornament of gardens.

The widely diffused tribe Ranunculiaceæ has many representatives, some of them profitable for their timber, others sought after for their fruit or admired for their beauty, and a few prized for their healing properties. There are eight species of Magnolia, all of them splendid flowering plants; the bark of the _Magnolia yulan_ is employed as a febrifuge. The seed vessels of the _Ilicium anisatum_, or star-aniseed, are gathered on account of their spicy warmth and fragrance. The _Artabotrys odoratissimus_ and _Unona odorata_ are cultivated for their perfume. Another favorite is the _mowtan_, or tree pæony, reared for its large and variegated flowers; its name of _hwa wang_, or ‘king of flowers,’ indicates the estimation in which it is held. The skill of native gardeners has made many varieties, and their patience is rewarded by the high prices which fine specimens command. Good imitations of full-grown plants in flower are sometimes made of pith paper. The Clematis, the foxglove, the _Berberis Chinensis_, and the magnificent lotus, all belong to this tribe; the latter, one of the most celebrated plants in Asia, is more esteemed by the Chinese for its edible roots than reverenced for its religious associations. The _Actæa aspera_ is sometimes collected, as is the scouring rush, for cleaning pewter vessels, for which its hispid leaves are well fitted.

The groups which include the poppy, mustard, cabbage, cress, and many ornamental species, form an important portion of native agriculture. The poppy has become a common crop in all the provinces, driving out the useful cereals by its greater value and profit. The leaves of many cruciferous plants are eaten, whether cultivated or wild; and one kind (_Isates_) yields a fine blue dye in the eastern provinces; the variety and amount of such food consumed by the Chinese probably exceeds that of any other people. Another tribe, Rutaceæ, contains the oranges and shaddocks, and some very fragrant shrubs, as the _Murraya exotica_ and _paniculata_, and the _Aglaia odorata_; while the bladder-tree (_Koelreuteria_) is a great attraction when its whole surface is brilliant with golden flowers. The _whampe_, _i.e._, yellow skin (_Cookia punctata_), is a common and superior fruit. The seeds of the Gleditschia, besides their value in cleansing, are worn as beads, “because,” say the Buddhists, “all demons are afraid of the wood;” one name means ‘preventive of evil.’ Two native fruits, the _líchí_ and _lungan_, are allied to the Sapindus in their affinities; while the _fung shu_, or Liquidambar, and many sorts of maple, with the _Pittosporum tobira_, an ornamental shrub, may be mentioned among plants used for food or sought after for timber.

~ORNAMENTAL PLANTS, ETC.~

These brief notices of Chinese plants may be concluded by mentioning some of the most ornamental not before spoken of; but all the beautiful sorts are soon introduced into western conservatories by enterprising florists. In the extensive tribe of Rubiacinæ are several species of honeysuckle, and a fragrant Viburnum resembling the snowball. The Serissa is cultivated around beds like the box; the _Ixora coccinea_, and other species of that genus, are among common garden shrubs. The seeds of two or three species of Artemisia are collected, dried, and reduced to a down, to be burned as an actual cautery. The dried twigs are frequently woven into a rope to slowly consume as a means of driving away mosquitoes. From the _Carthamus tinctoirus_ a fine red dye is prepared. The succory, lettuce, dandelion, and other cichoraceous plants, either wild or cultivated, furnish food; while innumerable varieties of Chrysanthemums and Asters are reared for their beauty.

The Labiatæ afford many genera, some of them cultivated; and the Solanaceæ, or nightshades, contain the tomato, potato, tobacco, stramony, and several species of Capsicum, or red pepper. It has been disputed whether tobacco is native or foreign, but the philological argument and historical notices prove that both this plant and maize were introduced within half a century after the discovery of America, or about the year 1530. The Chinese dry the leaves and cut them into shreds for smoking; the snuff is coarser and less pungent than the Scotch; it is said that powdered cinnabar is sometimes mixed with it.

Among the Convolvulaceæ are many beautiful species of Ipomea, especially the cypress vine, or _quamoclit_, trained about the houses even of the poorest. The _Ipomea maritima_ occurs, trailing over the sandy beaches along the coast from Hainan to Chusan and Lewchew. The _Convolvulus reptans_ is planted around the edges of pools on the confines of villages and fields, for the sake of its succulent leaves. The narcotic family of Apocyneæ contains the oleander and Plumeria, prized for their fragrance; while the yellow milkweed (_Asclepias curassavica_) and the _Vinca rosea_, or red periwinkle, are less conspicuous, but not unattractive, members of the same group. The jasmine is a deserved favorite, its clusters of flowers being often wound by women in their hair, and planted in pots in their houses. The _Olea fragrans_, or _kwei hwa_, is cultivated for scenting tea.

In the eastern provinces the hills are adorned with yellow and red azaleas of gorgeous hue, especially around Ningpo and in Chusan. “Few,” says Mr. Fortune, “can form any idea of the gorgeous beauty of these azalea-clad hills, where, on every side, the eye rests on masses of flowers of dazzling brightness and surpassing beauty. Nor is it the azalea alone which claims our admiration; clematises, wild roses, honeysuckles, and a hundred others, mingle their flowers with them, and make us confess that China is indeed the ‘central flowery land.’”[214]

~THE PUN TSAO, OR CHINESE HERBAL.~

A few notices of the advance made by the Chinese themselves in the study of natural history, taken from their great work on materia medica, the _Pun tsao_, or ‘Herbal,’ will form an appropriate conclusion to this chapter. This work is usually bound in forty octavo volumes, divided into fifty-two chapters, and contains many observations of value mixed up with a deal of incorrect and useless matter; and as those who read the book have not sufficient knowledge to discriminate between what is true and what is partly or wholly wrong, its reputation tends greatly to perpetuate the errors. The compiler of the _Pun tsao_, Lí Shí-chin, spent thirty years in collecting all the information on these subjects extant in his time, arranged it in a methodical manner for popular use, adding his own observations, and published it about 1590. He consulted some eight hundred preceding authors, from whom he selected one thousand five hundred and eighteen prescriptions, and added three hundred and seventy-four new ones, arranging his materials in fifty-two books in a methodical and (for his day) scientific manner. But how far behind the writings of Pliny and Dioscorides! The nucleus of Lí’s production is a small work which tradition ascribes to Shinnung, the God of Agriculture, and is doubtless anterior to the Han dynasty. His composition was well received, and attracted the notice of the Emperor, who ordered several succeeding editions to be published at the expense of the state. It was, in fact, so great an advance on all previous books, that it checked future writers in that branch, and Lí is likely now to be the first and last purely native critical writer on natural science in his mother tongue.

The first two volumes contain a collection of prefaces and indices, together with many notices of the theory of anatomy and medicine, and three books of pictorial illustrations of the rudest sort. Chapters I. and II. consist of introductory observations upon the practice of medicine, and an index of the recipes contained in the work, called the _Sure Guide to a Myriad of Recipes_; the whole filling the first seven volumes. Chapters III. and IV. contain lists of medicines for the cure of all diseases, occupying three volumes and a half, and comprising the therapeutical portion of the work, except a treatise on the pulse in the last volume.

In the subsequent chapters the author carefully goes over the entire range of nature, first giving the correct name and its explanation; then comes descriptive remarks, solutions of doubts and corrections of errors being interspersed, closing with notes on the savor, taste, and application of the recipes in which it is used. Chapters V. and VI. treat of inorganic substances under water and fire, and minerals under Chapters VII. to XI., as earth, metals, gems, and stones. Water is divided into aerial and terrestrial, _i.e._, from the clouds, and from springs, the ocean, etc. Fire is considered under eleven species, among which are the flames of coal, bamboo, moxa, etc. The chapter on earth comprises the secretions from various animals, as well as soot, ink, etc.; that on metals includes metallic substances and their common oxides; and gems are spoken of in the next division. The eleventh chapter, in true Chinese style, groups together what could not be placed in the preceding sections, including salts, minerals, etc. In looking at this arrangement one detects the similarity between it and the classification of characters in the language itself, showing the influence this has had upon it; thus _ho_, _shui_, _tu_, _kin_, _yuh_, _shih_, and _lu_, or fire, water, earth, metals, gems, stones, and salts, are the seven radicals under which the names of inorganic substances are classified in the imperial dictionary. A like similarity runs through other parts of the _Herbal_.

~BOTANY OF THE HERBAL.~

Chapters XII. to XXXVII., inclusive, treat of the vegetable kingdom, under five _pu_, or ‘divisions,’ viz.: herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits, and trees; which are again subdivided into _lui_, or ‘families,’ though the members of these families have no more relationship to each other than the heterogeneous family of an Egyptian slave dealer. The lowest term in the Chinese scientific scale is _chung_, which sometimes includes a genus, but quite as often corresponds to a species or even a variety, as Linneus understood those terms.

The first division of herbs contains nine families, viz.: hill plants, odoriferous, marshy, noxious, scandent or climbing, aquatic, stony, and mossy plants, and a ninth of one hundred and sixty-two miscellaneous plants not used in medicine, making six hundred and seventy-eight species in all. In this classification the habitat is the most influential principle of arrangement for the families, while the term _tsao_, or ‘herb,’ denotes whatever is not eaten or used in the arts, or which does not attain to the magnitude of a tree.

The second division of grains contains four families, viz.: 1, that of hemp, sesamum, buckwheat, wheat, rice, etc.; 2, the family of millet, maize, opium, etc.; 3, leguminous plants, pulse, peas, vetches, etc.; and 4, fermentable things, as bean curd, boiled rice, wine, yeast, congee, bread, etc., which, as they are used in medicine, and produced from vegetables, seem most naturally to come in this place. The first three families embrace thirty-nine species, and the last twenty-nine articles.

The third division of kitchen herbs contains five families: 1, offensive pungent plants, as leeks, mustard, ginger; 2, soft and mucilaginous plants, as dandelions, lilies, bamboo sprouts; 3, vegetables producing fruit on the ground, as tomatoes, egg-plants, melons; 4, aquatic vegetables; and 5, mushrooms and fungi. The number of species is one hundred and thirty-three, and some part of each of them is eaten.

The fourth division of fruits contains seven families: 1, the five fruits, the plum, peach, apricot, chestnut, and date (Rhamnus); 2, hill fruits, as the orange, pear, citron, persimmon; 3, foreign fruits, as the cocoanut, líchí, carambola; 4, aromatic fruits, as pepper, cubebs, tea; 5, trailing fruits, as melons, grape, sugar-cane; 6, aquatic fruits, as water caltrops, water lily, water chestnuts, etc.; and 7, fruits not used in medicine, as whampe. In all, one hundred and forty-seven species.

The fifth division of trees has six families: 1, odoriferous trees, as pine, cassia, aloes, camphor; 2, stately trees, as the willow, tamarix, elm, soapberry, palm, poplar, julibrissin or silk tree; 3, luxuriant growing trees, as mulberry, cotton, Cercis, Gardenia, Bombax, Hibiscus; 4, parasites or things attached to trees, as the mistletoe, pachyma, and amber; 5, flexible plants, as bamboo; this family has only four species; 6, includes what the other five exclude, though it might have been thought that the second and third families were sufficiently comprehensive to contain almost all miscellaneous plants. The number of species is one hundred and ninety-eight. All botanical subjects are classified in this manner under five divisions, thirty-one families, and one thousand one hundred and ninety-five species, excluding all fermentable things.

The arrangement of the botanical characters in the language does not correspond so well to this as does that of inorganic substances. The largest group in the language system is _tsao_, which comprises in general such herbaceous plants as are not used for food. The second, _muh_, includes all trees or shrubs; and the bamboo, on account of its great usefulness, stands by itself, though the characters mostly denote names of articles made of bamboo. No less than four radicals, viz., rice, wheat, millet, and grain, serve as the heads under which the esculent grasses are arranged; there are consequently many synonymes and superfluous distinctions. One family includes beans, and another legumes; one comprises cucurbitaceous plants, another the alliaceous, and a fourth the hempen; the importance of these plants as articles of food or manufacture no doubt suggested their adoption. Thus all vegetable substances are distributed in the language under eleven different heads.

~ITS ZOÖLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE HORSE.~

The zoölogical grouping in the _Pun tsao_ is as rude and unscientific as that of plants. There are five _pu_, or divisions, namely: insect, scaly, shelly, feathered, and hairy animals. The first division contains four families: 1 and 2, insects born from eggs, as bees and silkworms, butterflies and spiders; 3, insects produced by metamorphosis, as glow-worms, mole-crickets, bugs; and 4, water insects, as toads, centipedes, etc. The second division has four families: 1, the dragons, including the manis, “the only fish that has legs;” 2, snakes; 3, fishes having scales; and 4, scaleless fishes, as the eel, cuttle-fish, prawn. The third division is classified under the two heads of tortoises or turtles and mollusks, including the starfish, echinus, hermit-crab, etc. The fourth division contains birds arranged under four families: 1, water-fowl, as herons, king-fishers, etc.; 2, heath-fowl, sparrows, and pheasants; 3, forest birds, as magpies, crows; and 4, wild birds, as eagles and hawks. Beasts form the fifth division, which likewise contains four families: 1, the nine domesticated animals and their products; 2, wild animals, as lions, deers, otters; 3, rodentia, as the squirrel, hedgehog, rat; and 4, monkeys and fairies. The number of species in these five divisions is three hundred and ninety-one, but there are only three hundred and twenty different objects described, as the roe, fat, hair, exuviæ, etc., of animals are separately noticed.

The sixteen zoölogical characters in the language are not quite so far astray from being types of classes as the eleven botanical ones. Nine of them are mammiferous, viz.: the tiger, dog, and leopard, which stand for the carnivora; the rat for rodentia; the ox, sheep, and deer for ruminants; and the horse and hog for pachydermatous. Birds are chiefly comprised under one radical _niao_, but there is a sub-family of short-tailed gallinaceous fowls, though much confusion exists in the division. Fishes form one group, and improperly include crabs, lizards, whales, and snakes, though most of the latter are placed along with insects, or else under the dragons. The tortoise, toad, and dragon are the types of three small collections, and insects are comprised in the sixteenth and last. These groups, although they contain many anomalies, as might be expected, are still sufficiently natural to teach those who write the language something of the world around them. Thus, when one sees that a new character contains the radical _dog_ in composition, he will be sure that it is neither fowl, fish, nor bug, nor any animal of the pachydermatous, cervine, or ruminant tribes, although he may have never seen the animal nor heard its name. This peculiarity runs through the whole language, indeed, but in other groups, as for instance those under the radicals man, woman, and child, or heart, hand, leg, etc., the characters include mental and passionate emotions, as well as actions and names, so that the type is not sufficiently indicative to convey a definite idea of the words included under it; the names of natural objects being most easily arranged in this manner.

Between the account of plants and animals the _Herbal_ has one chapter on garments and domestic utensils, for such things “are used in medicine and are made out of plants.” The remaining chapters, XXXIX.-LII., treat of animals, as noticed above. The properties of the objects spoken of are discussed in a very methodical manner, so that a student can immediately turn to a plant or mineral and ascertain its virtue. For instance, the information relative to the history and uses of the horse is contained in twenty-four sections. The first explains the character, _ma_, which was originally intended to represent the outline of the animal. The second describes the varieties of horses, the best kinds for medical use, and gives brief descriptions of them, for the guidance of the practitioner. “The pure white are the best for medicine. Those found in the south and east are small and weak. The age is known by the teeth. The eye reflects the full image of a man. If he eats rice his feet will become heavy; if rat’s dung, his belly will grow long; if his teeth be rubbed with dead silkworms, or black plums, he will not eat, nor if the skin of a rat or wolf be hung in his manger. He should not be allowed to eat from a hog’s trough, lest he contract disease; and if a monkey is kept in the stable he will not fall sick.”

The third section goes on to speak of the flesh, which is an article of food; that of a pure white stallion is the most wholesome. One author recommends “eating almonds, and taking a rush broth, if the person feel uncomfortable after a meal of horse-flesh. It should be roasted and eaten with ginger and pork; and to eat the flesh of a black horse, and not drink wine with it, will surely produce death.” The fourth describes the crown of the horse, the “fat of which is sweet, and good to make the hair grow and the face to shine.” The fifth and succeeding sections to the twenty-fourth treat of the sanative properties and mode of exhibiting the milk, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, placenta, teeth, bones, skin, mane, tail, brains, blood, perspiration, and excrements.

Some of the directions are dietetic, and others are prescriptive. “When eating horse-flesh do not eat the liver,” is one of the former, given because of the absence of a gall-bladder in the liver, which imports its poisonous qualities. “The heart of a white horse, or that of a hog, cow, or hen, when dried and rasped into spirit and so taken, cures forgetfulness; if the patient hears one thing he knows ten.” “Above the knees the horse has _night-eyes_ (warts), which enable him to go in the night; they are useful in the toothache;” these sections partake both of the descriptive and prescriptive. Another medical one is: “If a man be restless and hysterical when he wishes to sleep, and it is requisite to put him to rest, let the ashes of a skull be mingled with water and given him, and let him have a skull for a pillow, and it will cure him.” The same preservative virtues appear to be ascribed to a horse’s hoof hung in a house as are supposed, by some who should know better, to belong to a horseshoe when nailed upon the door.[215] The whole of this extensive work is liberally sprinkled with such whimsies, but the practice of medicine among the Chinese is vastly better than their theories; for as Rémusat justly observes, “To see well and reason falsely are not wholly incompatible, and the naturalists of China, as well as the chemists and physicians of our ancient schools, have sometimes tried to reconcile them.”

~NATURAL SCIENCES IN CHINA.~

Another work on botany besides the _Herbal_, issued in 1848, deserves notice for its research and the excellence of its drawings. It is the _Chih Wuh Ming-shih Tu-kao_, or _Researches into the Names and Virtues of Plants_, with plates, in sixty volumes. There are one thousand seven hundred and fifteen drawings of plants, with descriptions of each, arranged in eleven books, followed by medical and agricultural observations on the most important in four books. One of its valuable points to the foreigner is the terminology furnished by the two authors for describing the parts and uses of plants. Rémusat read a paper in 1828, ‘On the State of the Natural Sciences among the Orientals,’ in which he indicates the position attained by Chinese in their researches into the nature and uses of objects around them. After speaking of the adaptation the language possesses, from its construction, to impart some general notions of animated and vegetable nature, he goes on to remark upon the theorizing propensities of their writers, instead of contenting themselves with examining and recording facts. “In place of studying the organization of bodies, they undertake to determine by reasoning how it should be, an aim which has not seldom led them far from the end they proposed. One of the strangest errors among them relates to the transformation of beings into each other, which has arisen from popular stories or badly conducted observations on the metamorphoses of insects. Learned absurdities have been added to puerile prejudices; that which the vulgar have believed the philosophers have attempted to explain, and nothing can be easier, according to the oriental systems of cosmogony, in which a simple matter, infinitely diversified, shows itself in all beings. Changes affect only the apparent properties of bodies, or rather the bodies themselves have only appearances; according to these principles, they are not astonished at seeing the electric fluid or even the stars converted into stones, as happens when aerolites fall. That animated beings become inanimate is proven by fossils and petrifactions. Ice enclosed in the earth for a millennium becomes rock crystal; and it is only necessary that lead, the _father_ of all metals (as Saturn, its alchemistic type, was of gods), pass through four periods of two centuries each to become successively cinnabar, tin, and silver. In spring the rat changes into a quail, and quails into rats again during the eighth month.

“The style in which these marvels is related is now and then a little equivocal; but if they believe part of them proved, they can see nothing really impossible in the others. One naturalist, less credulous than his fellows, rather smiles at another author who reported the metamorphosis of an oriole into a mole, and of rice into a carp; ‘it is a ridiculous story,’ says he; ‘there is proof only of the change of rats into quails, which is reported in the almanac, and which I have often seen myself, for there is an unvaried progression, as well of transformations as of generations.’ Animals, according to the Chinese, are viviparous as quadrupeds, or oviparous as birds; they grow by transformations, as insects, or by the effect of humidity, as snails, slugs, and centipedes.... The success of such systems is almost always sure, not in China alone either, because it is easier to put words in place of things, to stop at nothing, and to have formulas ready for solving all questions. It is thus that they have formed a scientific jargon, which one might almost think had been borrowed from our dark ages, and which has powerfully contributed to retain knowledge in China in the swaddling-clothes we now find it. Experience teaches that when the human mind is once drawn into a false way, the lapse of ages and the help of a man of genius are necessary to draw it out. Ages have not been wanting in China, but the man whose superior enlightenment might dissipate these deceitful glimmerings, would find it very difficult to exercise this happy influence as long as their political institutions attract all their inquiring minds or vigorous intellects far away from scientific researches into the literary examinations, or put before them the honors and employments which the functions and details of magisterial appointments bring with them.”[216]

~CONSERVATISM OF NATIVE RESEARCH.~

This last observation indicates the reason, to a great degree, for the fixedness of the Chinese in all departments of learned inquiry; hard labor employs the energy and time of the ignorant mass, and emulation in the strife to reach official dignities consumes and perverts the talents of the learned. Then their language itself disheartens the most enthusiastic students in this branch of study, on account of its vagueness and want of established terms. When the vivifying and strengthening truths of revelation shall be taught to the Chinese, and its principles acted upon among them, we may expect more vigor in their minds and more profit in their investigations into the wonders of nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[167] _The Chinese_, Vol. II., pp. 333-343.

[168] _Journal of the Geolog. Soc._, London, for 1871, p. 379.

[169] _Im fernen Osten_, p. 462.

[170] _China: Ergebnisse eigener Reisen._ Band I., S. 74. Berlin, 1877.

[171] Compare Kingsmill, in the _Quar. Journal of the Geol. Soc. of London_, 1868, pp. 119 ff., and in the _North China Herald_, Vol. IX., 85, 86.

[172] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 395.

[173] _Across America and Asia_, pp. 291 ff.

[174] _Five Months on the Yang-tsze_, p. 265. _Annales de la Foi_, Tome IX., p. 457.

[175] _N. C. Br. R. A. Soc. Journal_, New Series, No. III., pp. 94-106, and No. IV., pp. 243 ff. Notes by Mr. Hollingworth of a Visit to the Coal Mines in the Neighborhood of Loh-Ping. _Blue Book, China_, No. 2, 1870, p. 11. _Notes and Queries on China and Japan_, Vol. II., pp. 74-76. _North China Herald_, passim. Richthofen’s _Letters_, and in _Ocean Highways_, Nov., 1873. _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XIX., pp. 385 ff.

[176] Compare Rémusat, _Histoire de Khotan_, pp. 163 ff., where there is an extended list of Chinese precious stones drawn from native sources.

[177] Murray’s _China_, Edinburgh, 1843, Vol. III., p. 276; compare also an article on this stone by M. Blondel, of Paris, published in the _Smithsonian Report_ for 1876. _Mémoires concernant les Chinois_, Tome XIII., p. 389. Rémusat in the _Journal des Savans_, Dec., 1818, pp. 748 ff. _Notes and Queries on C. and J._, Vol. II., pp. 173, 174, and 187; Vol. III., p. 63; Vol. IV., pp. 13 and 33. _Macmillan’s Magazine_, October, 1871. Yule, _Cathay and the Way Thither_, Vol. II., p. 564.

[178] _Nephrit und Jadeit, nach ihren mineralogischen Eigenschaften sowie nach ihrer urgeschichtlichen und ethnographischen Bedeutung._ Heinrich Fischer, Stuttgart, 1880. An exhaustive treatise on every phrase and variety of the mineral.

[179] Obtained from Badakshan. Wood, _Journey to the Oxus_, p. 263.

[180] _Geological Researches in China_, Chap. X.

[181] Humboldt, _Fragmens Asiatiques_, Tome I., p. 196. _Annales de la Foi_, Janvr., 1829, pp. 416 ff.

[182] Breton, _China, its Costumes, Arts_, etc., Vol. II.

[183] Bridgman’s _Chinese Chrestomathy_, p. 469.

[184] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VII., p. 90.

[185] _Zoöl. Soc. Proc._, 1870, p. 626.

[186] Borget, _La Chine Ouverte_, p. 147.

[187] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. XII., p. 608.

[188] Ibid., Vol. VI., p. 411.

[189] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 353.

[190] _Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans._

[191] _Oriental and Western Siberia_, p. 416.

[192] _Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society_, May, 1859, p. 289.

[193] _Journal N. C. Br. R. A. Soc._, Vol. IV., 1867, Art. XI., by T. Watters.

[194] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 237.

[195] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 246--where there is an admirable wood-cut of one from Wood.

[196] _From Kulja to Lob-nor_, p. 116.

[197] John Gould, _Century of Birds_. London, 1831-32.

[198] On the birds of China, see in general _Les Oiseaux de la Chine_, par M. l’Abbé Armand David, avec un Atlas de 124 Planches dessinées et lith. par M. Arnoul. Paris, 1877. R. Swinhoe, in the _Proceedings of the Scientific Meetings of the Zoölogical Soc. of London_, and in _The Ibis, a Magazine of General Ornithology_, passim. _Journ. N. C. Br. R. A. Soc._, Nos. II., p. 225, and III., p. 287.

[199] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VII., p. 213. Compare Yule’s note, _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 232. Huc, _Travels in Tartary_, etc., Vol. II., p. 246. Bell, _Journey from St. Petersburgh in Russia to Ispahan in Persia_, Vol. I., p. 216. Also Heeren, _Asiatic Nations_, Vol. I., p. 98, where there is a _résumé_ of Ctesias’ account of the unicorn.

[200] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VII., p. 250. For a careful analysis of this relic of ancient lore, see the _Nouveau Journal Asiatique_, Tome XII., pp. 232-243, 1833; also Tome VIII., 3d Series, pp. 337-382, 1839, for M. Bazin’s estimate of its value.

[201] Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. II., p. 46.

[202] Vol. III., p. 445.

[203] Conspectus of collections made by Dr. Cantor, _Chinese Repository_, Vol. X., p. 434. General features of Chusan, with remarks on the Flora and Fauna of that Island, by T. E. Cantor, _Annal. Nat. Hist._, Vol. IX. (1842), pp. 265, 361, and 481. _Journal As. Soc. of Bengal_, Vol. XXIV., 1855.

[204] Hanbury’s notes on _Chinese Materia Medica_, 1862; _Pharmaceutical Journal_, Feb., 1862.

[205] Baron Richthofen’s _Letters_, No. VII., to Shanghai Chamber of Commerce, May, 1872, p. 52.

[206] Darwin, _Naturalist’s Voyage_, p. 35, notices a similar habit of the sphex in the vicinity of Rio Janeiro. The insect partially kills the spider or caterpillar by stinging, when they are stored in a rotting state with her eggs.

[207] Compare Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 271; A. R. Wallace, _The Malay Archipelago_, pp. 87-91, American Ed.

[208] See also in _Notes and Queries on C. and J._, Vol. III., pp. 115, 129, 139, 147, 150, 170.

[209] From calculations of Humboldt it was estimated that the productiveness of this plant as compared with wheat is as 133 to 1, and as against potatoes, 44 to 1.

[210] Compare Yule’s _Marco Polo_, Vol. I., p. 197.

[211] The application of this name to the jujube plum by foreigners, because the kind cured in honey resembled Arabian dates in color, size, and taste when brought on the table, is a good instance of the manner in which errors arise and are perpetuated from mere carelessness.

[212] Compare Dr. H. F. Hance, in _Journal of Botany_, Vol. IX., p. 38.

[213] _Travels in Siberia_, Vol. II., p. 151.

[214] _Wanderings in China._

[215] _Chinese Repository_, Vol. VII., p. 393.

[216] _Mélanges Orientales, Posthumes_, p. 215.