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north, it has proved extremely difficult to procure specimens, nor has the hen-bird been ever obtained. Four cocks were brought to Canton in 1830, and purchased for a hundred and thirty dollars, or about thirty pounds sterling. These furnished the specimens brought home by Mr. Reeves; the difficulty of procuring the females being attributed either to a determination on the part of the sellers to prevent the birds being bred, or to their imagining that the inferior plumage of the hens might render them less attractive to purchasers. This obstacle is the more to be regretted, as the high latitude from which the species are procured renders it likely that they might be propagated here in a natural state. Another description is called by Mr. Bennett the medallion pheasant, from a beautiful membrane of resplendent colours, which is displayed or contracted according as the animal is more or less roused. The brilliant hues are chiefly purple, with bright red and green spots, which vary in intensity according to the degree of excitement, and become developed during the early spring months, or pairing season of the

year.

The country abounds in wild-fowl of all kinds, among which the immense flocks of geese, which during the winter months cover the Canton river, always excite the notice of strangers. They migrate to the north during the summer, and are distinguished, like all the tribe, by their gregarious habits; but the Chinese, without any apparent foundation in fact, make use of them as emblems of connubial attachment, and as such they are always carried in wedding processions. There is much more ground for this character in the instance of the Yuen-yâng, a teal of splendid plumage, usually called the "mandarinduck," whose name is, with reference to the same conjugal quality, applied figuratively to two species of fine black

tea, which are generally put up in the same box, and used together; these are pekoe, and a superior kind of souchong. Mr. Beale's aviary afforded a singular corroboration of the fidelity of the birds in question. Of a pair in that gentleman's possession, the drake being one night purloined by some thieves, the unfortunate duck displayed the strongest marks of despair at her bereavement, retiring into a corner, and altogether neglecting food and drink, as well as the care of her person. In this condition she was courted by a drake who had lost his mate, but who met with no encouragement to his addresses from the widow. On the stolen drake being subsequently recovered, and restored to the aviary, the most extravagant demonstrations of joy were displayed by the fond couple.* But this was not all, for, as if informed by his feathered Penelope of the gallant proposals made to her shortly before his arrival, the drake attacked the luckless bird who would have supplanted him, beat out his eyes, and inflicted so many injuries as to cause his death. Specimens of these curious and handsome ducks have been brought to this country, and some that were placed in the Zoological Gardens have been successfully bred. The plumage of the female is as plain as that of the drake is ornamented; but the male, during four summer months, changes his feathers, and becomes as plain as his mate. This teal, unlike the rest of the palmipedes, generally roosts in high situations, upon trees or rocks, and his favourite position was over the windows of Mr. Beale's aviary.

Wild ducks are as numerous near Canton, during the winter months, as the geese. They abound especially in the interior, on those extensive shallow lakes through which the canal is carried; and the ingenious mode of catching them is very characteristic of the Chinese. Large * Mr. Bennett's 'Wanderings,' vol. ii. p. 62.

hollow gourds are purposely thrown into the water in great numbers, and allowed to float about. The birds being at length accustomed to approach these with impunity, their captors disguise themselves by placing similar gourds over their heads, with holes to see and breathe through, very much in the manner of a helmet. Then wading quietly along the shallow waters, with their bodies immersed above the shoulders, they have nothing to do but to approach the birds gently, and pull them under water by their legs in succession. It has been remarked that the same practice has been recorded by Ulloa of the natives of Carthagena, in the New Word, upon the lake Cienega de Tesias.

The fishing-corvorant, employed on the same lakes, has been pictured in the folio plates to Staunton, and described as "a brown pelican or corvorant, with white throat; body whitish beneath, spotted with brown; tail rounded; irides blue; and bill yellow." While fishing, these birds are prevented from swallowing what they catch, by means of a ring over the lower part of the neck; but when the work is over this ring is removed, and they are allowed to feed upon the refuse. Sometimes, however, they are said to be so well trained as to need no restraint as to feeding whatever. A few of them were observed as far south as Keangnân, in the neighbourhood of the Mei-ling pass.

A species of pelican has been seen on a group of rocks called the Nine Islands, lying about six miles north-east of Macao, but it is probably quite distinct from the variety that is used in fishing. Among the miscellaneous birds of China may be enumerated quails, often trained to fight; the common ring-dove, of which great numbers breed in the woods about Canton; and the peculiar crow of the country, which is marked with white about the neck. has been noticed already that this bird is considered sacred,

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either for some service that he is supposed to have rendered the present dynasty, or because he is the emblem of filial duty; from a notion, well or ill founded, that the young

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ones assist the old when they are disabled. In Europe the same character has been attributed to the stork, but the stork is, in China, considered as emblematical of long life. Figures of this bird, as well as of the pine-tree, are represented on the visiting tickets which are left at the new year; and they imply the wish that the person so complimented may have "many happy returns of the season." Among the other common birds of China, we must not omit a delicate species of ortolan, which appears in the neighbourhood of Canton about the time when the

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last crop of rice is cut. As it feeds on the ears of grain, it is for that reason called the "rice-bird," in the same way that the term wheatear is applied to a similar description in the south of England. Mr. Gray, in his 'Zoological Miscellany,' has given the descriptive characters of twelve species of birds belonging to a large collection brought home by Mr. Reeves..

But it is time to quit this part of the subject, and to notice those reptiles of China that have come under observation; concerning which it is remarkable that the largest kind of saurians, as the crocodile and alligator, are unknown even as far south as Canton. Great numbers of the small lizard tribes are visible during the hot months, some of them infesting trees and shrubs, while others inhabit holes in rocks or old walls. Several fresh-water tortoises have been sent home, and described in the Zoological Proceedings for 1834; and two new genera of batrachians, or the frog kind, are noticed by Mr. Gray. Notwithstanding its situation, under the tropic, Canton is little infested by the venomous kinds of serpents. The species most dreaded is a slender snake between two and three feet in length, and called by the Chinese "the black and white," from being surrounded from head to tail with alternate bands of those colours. Mr. Bennett brought home an individual of this species, which had been killed after biting a Chinese on the foot, and causing his death in a few hours. The head was cut off by a countryman of the sufferer who came to his assistance, and who, having bruised it, applied it as a poultice to the bitten part. It may be questioned, as the narrator observes, whether the poison mingled with the mashed head may not have served to hasten the fatal termination.

Of fishes, a large collection of Chinese specimens has been lodged by Mr. Reeves in the British Museum. The

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