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Bears are quite common in the hilly parts of Shensy, west of Peking. They have often been seen in cages at Canton, whither they had most probably been brought from the westward, perhaps from Yun-nân or Sze-chuen. The paws of these animals, which abound in fat, are eaten by the Chinese as a delicacy. The country upon the whole is too well cultivated and thickly peopled to afford lodging and entertainment to many of the larger wild animals, however much they may have abounded originally. Similar reasons may account (besides climate) for the paucity of the quadrumanous tribes of apes and monkeys. Some of these animals exist on the island of Lintin, near the mouth of the Canton river; but it is most probable that they are descended from a few individuals of the

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genus which may have got loose upon the island from the numerous junks and ships perpetually arriving from the seas to the south.

Dromedaries are much used as beasts of burthen be

tween Peking and Tartary; but in China itself the reasons which cause human labour to supplant every other have prevented their being adopted; nor did we see one of these animals between Peking and Canton throughout the whole empire. Chinese horses are but rare, and of a very poor and stunted breed, probably from the same cause that renders their horned cattle so extremely diminutive-the deficiency of food and care. For their bulk, however, the horses are bony and strong, about the size of, or a little larger than, Shetland ponies, and at the best very rough and i kept, with their fetlocks overgrown with hair. There is a white spotted species, often represented in Chinese pictures, and which might be considered as the produce of imagination had it not been verified by the actual observations of our embassies. The whole equestrian establishment of a mandarin, or person of wealth, is ragged and beggarly in the extreme: they have no idea whatever of either condition or neatness in the turn-out of their horses. Asses and mules are common in the north of the empire. The mules are generally of a good size, and said to bear a higher price than horses, as being capable of more labour on less food.

Of the common ruminant animals, the Chinese possess several species of deer, particularly a spotted kind, which is sometimes kept about their residences. Gerbillon describes a variety of antelope abounding on the borders of Mongol Tartary, and called by the Chinese Huâng-yang, "yellow-goat." This animal is found towards the sandy desert of Shamo, together with vast numbers of hares and a peculiar sort of birds styled in Chinese "sand-partridges," perhaps without being a true variety of that species, for they are not very exact in their nomenclature. The sheep of China are the large-tailed kind, so common in Africa; and this extraordinary determination of fat to

the tail would almost appear to be the reason why they are not found to be such good stock as European sheep. As the Chinese themselves never use milk, cows are only met with near Canton, or Macao, of a peculiarly small breed; perhaps the very smallest of the ox tribe, as they sometimes do not exceed the dimensions of an ass; being at the same time of a clean and symmetrical shape, and without the hump common to the kine of India. The buffalo used in ploughing up rice-fields is also a very small species, not so large as our English cattle, with a skin of dark slate-colour, thinly covered with hairs. It has all the sluggish habits of the species, and in summer seeks refuge from the flies that torment its hairless hide, by plunging up to the nose in muddy tanks, where it rolls in the ooze and covers itself with a coating of soil. These ugly animals are rendered very tractable by those who use them in agriculture, and may generally be seen driven by a young boy, who will occasionally fall asleep upon the beast's back. It is probably in consequence of the derivation of the Budhist religion from India that most Chinese have a prejudice against eating beef of any kind, though they kill it freely for the use of foreign ships.

The domestic pig of China is well known in this country, where it has been introduced into our farm-yards, from being found an excellent and thriving stock on the homeward voyage. Pork is the only flesh-food that a Chinese of the lower ranks ever consumes; and even this is commonly substituted by salt-fish, as a cheaper aliment to mix with rice. The wild boar may be found in the halfreclaimed countries on the western borders, but not in Central China, or on the east coast, where tillage and population have arrived at their present height. Of the other wild pachydermatous tribes, the elephant is not at

present an inhabitant of China, unless it be in Yun-nân, nor is he used in that empire for purposes of either peace or war. The emperor has a few at Peking, but they are sent as tribute from Siam or elsewhere, and merely kept for curiosity and state. The one-horned rhinoceros of Asia is found in the forests of the extreme west and south. The horn is sometimes converted, by carving and polishing, into a sort of cup, the root or point of junction with the nose being hollowed out, while the summit of the horn serves as the pedestal or handle. The notion of its being a charm against poison was imported probably by the Mongols from India.*

Of rodent animals, the common rat attains sometimes to an immense size, and is well known to be eaten by the lowest orders of the Chinese. These creatures inhabit hollows in the banks of rivers and canals, and are taken at night by means of a lantern, which, being held to the mouths of their holes, causes the inmates to approach the entrance to reconnoitre; when the light dazzles their

eyes

There is a curious notice of the Siberian mammoth in Sir George Staunton's translation of the Chinese Embassy to the Tourgouths. "In the very coldest parts of this northern country," says the writer of the narrative, "a species of animal is found, which burrows under the earth, and which dies if it is at all exposed at any time to the sun and air. It is of great size, and weighs 10,000 kin. Its bones are very white and shining, like ivory. It is not by nature a powerful animal, and is not therefore very dangerous or ferocious. It is found generally in the mud upon the banks of rivers. The Russians collect the bones of this animal, in order to make cups, saucers, combs, and other small articles. The flesh of the animal is of a very refrigerating quality, and is eaten as a remedy in fevers." This account of the popular notions prevalent among the natives corresponds, as the translator observes, nearly with that given by Mr. Bell. He indeed qualifies it by adding that he gives it only as the report of the superstitious and ignorant ; and he says nothing of the flesh having been actually eaten. More recent discoveries, however, have confirmed the truth of a portion of these relations; for not only bones, but the flesh of the entire Siberian elephant has been found undecayed amidst the ice and snows.

Mr.

in such a manner as to lead to their easy capture. Reeves discovered a glirine animal, nearly allied to the bamboo-rat of Sumatra, with which it has been associated under the name of rhizomys. Mr. Gray describes it as a new genus, "in teeth and general appearance most nearly allied to spalax; from which it differs in its tail of moderate length, its exposed eyes and ears, and the more complex character of its molar teeth. It moreover lives upon, and not under, the ground, being found about bamboohedges, on the roots of which it principally subsists." To Mr. Reeves also we are indebted for the knowledge of two small carnivorous quadrupeds, new in zoology, and distinguished, since the arrival of the specimens, by the names Helictis and Paguma. The first is described by Mr. Gray as possessing a dentition resembling that of gulo or mustela, but differing from both those genera in some particulars of the upper carnivorous teeth. The entire length of the animal is twenty-three and a half inches, of which the tail measures eight, and it smells strongly of musk. The second animal is allied, in respect to its teeth, with the genus viverra; from which it is distinguished by the shape and inferior size of its skull, the space between the eyes being broader, and the nose both broader and shorter. The skin has the odour of civet.*

The ornithology of China is distinguished by some splendid varieties of gallinaceous birds, as the gold and silver pheasants, to which have been lately added the Reeves's pheasant, deserving of a particular description from Mr. Bennett. The longest tail-feathers approach the extraordinary dimensions of six feet, and, even in the spacious aviary of Mr. Beale, already described, it was found that the ends of these magnificent trains were broken by the bird's movements. As they come quite from the

* Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1831, p. 95.

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