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Some Foreign Birds and Beasts in Chinese Books

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

A. C. Moule
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Extract

The following pages bring together passages from Chinese books, some of which have been translated before in a different context, illustrating them by reproductions of woodcuts which are unfamiliar and of great interest.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 57 , Issue 2 , April 1925 , pp. 247 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1925

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References

page 248 note 1 Chu fan chih by Chao Ju-kua, October, 1225. This passage (continued below) is translated from the edition printed by Rockhill in Japan, 1914, c. 1, fol. 25vo. The I yü t‘u chih is a rare book of which a copy is preserved in the Wade Collection at Cambridge. This copy, which is not quite complete, consists of 195 printed pages. The text is of little value except as affording evidence of the date, but the pictures, 182 in number, are of very great interest. The date may possibly be about 1400 or a few years earlier, but, for the appendix at least, about 1420 would seem to be a more likely date. For leave to reproduce some of the illustrations I am obliged to the authorities of the University Library at Cambridge. A copy of the I yü, t‘u chih which was formerly in the T‘ien i ko library at Ning-po is described in Ssŭ k‘u ch‘üan shu tsung mu, c, 78, fol. 13ro, but it is not quite certain that it was identical with the Cambridge book.

page 248 note 2 chang, “ ten feet,” is probably a misprint for ch‘ih, “ foot.”

page 249 note 1 Ying yai shêng Ian, fol. 33vo. For this book I have used the British Museum MS. Or. 6191. Rockhill in the T‘oung pao, 1915, translated from a different, and as he thought the original, text, and regarded the British Museum text as edited and expanded by Chang Shêng between 1436 and 1617. In that text, however, the first preface (fol. Ivo) is dated impossibly 1416, and the postscript (fol. 43vo) August, 1451, with the name of Ma Huan in both places, while Chang Shêng, who seems to have lived in the first half of the fifteenth century, is not mentioned. The difference between the two texts is shown by Rockhill's version of the present passage : “ The Shan t‘o chi (mountain camel fowl) has a slim neck and a fowl's body like a crane, but 3 or 4 feet long, feet with two toes, and hair like a camel's. Hence it is called t‘o chi (camel fowl).”

page 249 note 2 The Hsing ch‘a shêng Ian is quoted from the Ku chin shuo hai, ed. 1821 ; and the Hsi yang ch‘ao kung lien lu from the Yueh ya t‘ang ts‘ung shu, 1853, part iii.

page 250 note 1 This is from Pi Yüan's edition. Bazin, in J.A., November, 1839, p. 342, seems to have had a different text, translating the latter part: On les appelle lo-cho, et l’on croit que la peau et la queue de ces quadrupèdes ont une vertu talismanique, celle de maintenir la paix et la bonne harmonie parmi les enfants et les petits enfants. The T‘u shu chi ch‘êng, Ch‘in shou (xix), c. 123 hui k‘ao 1, fol. 2vo, has a poor view of a zebra, called lu-shu.

page 252 note 1 hua mao lu (taken from the Ying yai shêng lan, fol. 34vo: “ He also obtained by purchase … such creatures as ch‘i-lin, shih-tzǔ, hua mao lu, chin ch‘ien pao, t‘o chi, po chiu ”) may possibly be a misprint for hua fu lu, which certainly means zebra, and in any case the zebra may be intended. The chin ch‘ien pao (felis Fontanierii, Giles) is a familiar Chinese animal, and its frequent inclusion in the lists of foreign animals is curious, unless the cheetah (chītā or chircha, “ spotted ”) is meant. The picture in I yü ch‘in shou t‘u, where it is called chin hsien pao, looks like a leopard or cheetah. The ordinary name should probably be translated “ gold and coin leopard ”, the coins being the black markings.

page 252 note 2 The ma-ha-shou is drawn in I yü ch‘in shou t‘u, fol. 6vo, as an antelope with long straight horns with a spiral twist and slightly curved forward at the tips, and with a tufted tail, and may very probably be identified with the oryx beisa of East and North-East Africa, which is said to have horns 44 or 48 inches long. Mr. W. A. Crabtree says that in Egypt an oryx is called maau-heteh, the first part of which has a distant likeness to ma-ha. For ling yang Bretschneider suggests “ broad-tailed sheep ” on the authority of Pên ts‘ao kang mu, c. 51, fol. 27, and this is confirmed by the I t‘ung chih. But I yü ch‘in shou t‘u, fol. 8ro, shows a pair of hornless broad-tailed sheep (like the “ large-tailed hornless sheep” of Ying yai shêng lan, fol. 35vo) and calls them A-pi yang. Ling, variously written, comes several times in the accounts of foreign lands, and also in the ancient Êrh ya and Shuo wên, where it is defined as a large goat, and it is drawn in the Êrh ya t‘u with a pair of large slightly curved horns. Cf. also Ling wai tai ta, c. 3, fol. 4ro , and the parallel passage in I yü t‘u chih, fol. 36vo.

page 253 note 1 There is no mention of Hsü's poem in his biography (Ming shih, c. 168, fol. 3) nor in any collection of Ming poetry available. The Tz‘ǔ yüan says also, without quoting authority, that fu-lu is sometimes written fu-li, and attributes the identification of ch‘i-lin with the giraffe to the Japanese. The hsüan pao (black leopard) and ha-la hu-la (qara’ qulaq, “ black ears,” caracal) are shown in I yu ch‘in shou t‘u.

page 253 note 2 The description of the zebra is quoted by Bretschneider (Med. Res., 1910, ii, p. 134) and by the Tz‘ŭ yüan, the latter attributing it to the Ch‘ing i t‘ung chih, in which I can find no mention of zebra or giraffe.

page 257 note 1 Cf. Giles, , Adversaria Sinica, 1910, pp. 265 sqq.Google Scholar, “ The Celestial Horse and others ” ; Ch‘ien han shu, c. 6, fol. 6ro, 8ro, c. 61, fol. 3ro ; Shan hai ching, c. 3, fol. 10vo (where the t‘ien ma actually flies); Mission Segalen- de Voisins-Lartigue, i, plate 41 (an early sculpture of a winged horse). Giles, loc. cit., quotes without reference two lines of Li Po where the t‘ien ma is said to have tiger stripes on its back. There was a temple of the t‘ien ma at Ning chou P‘ei wên yün fu, c. 34b fol. 23ro. The great destrier which reached Khanbalig from Europe in 1342 was called t‘ien ma, —Pelliot, T'oung-pao, 1914, pp. 642, 643; Kuei chai chi, c. 1, fol. 3 .

page 258 note 1 Professor Bevan kindly tells me that Saifu-d-din ruled Bengal, according to Indian chronology, 1409–11.

page 359 note 1 Ferrand, G., Journal Asiatique, 1918, juillet-août, pp. 155–158Google Scholar. This is not the place to discuss the identification of the ancient ch‘i-lin. But, on the one hand, it may be noticed that it had one soft-pointed horn and a cow's tail, and the giraffe has a cow's tail and soft horns, while “ the northern races [those which would be known to the Chinese] are characterized by the large frontal horn of the bull ” (Enc. Brit., s.v. Giraffe); and on the other hand, the combination ch‘i-lin does not seem to be really ancient, coming once in the Li chi apparently, and not at all in the Shuo wên, A.D. 121, which defines ch‘i and lin separately.

page 259 note 2 G. Ferrand, J.A., 1914, juillet-août, pp. 157–60. The Somali word is given in the forms faro, farao, fár’o, faró, farú. For fu-lu = fara’ = wild ass, see Watters, Essays on the Chinese Language, 1889, p. 355, and Giles, Dictionary, 1892. M. Ferrand himself tells me that “ striped fara’ ” is the Arabic for zebra given in the excellent French-Arabic dictionary of the Roman Catholic Fathers at Beyrouth, and that there is little or no authority for the use of the Arabic zarad, given by Badger and Dozy in their dictionaries, in the sense of zebra. It is obvious that the earlier Chinese name hua-lü, in its Cantonese form fa-lŭü, serves both as a transliteration of fár’o or fara’ and as a descriptive name. Where the same term is used in the fifteenth century (pp. 256, 257 above) it is the descriptive sense that is predominant.

page 260 note 1 The giraffe from Verbiest's K‘un yü t‘u shuo, c. A.D. 1673, in T‘u shu chi ch‘êng, ch‘in shou (xix), c. 125, hui k‘ao 3, fol. 18vo, 19ro, is 25 feet high. It is called O-na-his-yüeh (onager ? ?) and is without spots. But spots are conspicuous enough on this giraffe-like lin from the inside of a bronze basin of the Han dynasty. Cf. Senoku seishō, part i, No. 112 , p. 63, in the reproductions of the collection of Baron Sumitomo, to whom I am much indebted. I am obliged to Mr. W. P. Yetts for very kind help in the preparation of this illustration.

page 261 note 1 At the last moment I am indebted to SirRidgeway, William and to his The Origin and Influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, 1905, pp. 55–81Google Scholar, and his “ The Differentiation of the three species of Zebras ” in Proceedings of the Zoological Soc. of London, 1909, pp. 547–63, for important notes on the zebra. It seems that the zebra, though known to Herodotus and to the Romans, was unknown to modern Europe before the sixteenth century. The Chu fan chih seems clearly to describe Burchell's zebra, the later books either Grévy's or Burchell's. The first European description (in Pigafetta's Report of the Kingdome of Congo (1591), 1597; in Ridgeway, op. cit., p. 60) must be compared with the first Chinese account (p. 251 above): “ From the ridge of the chine downe towards the bellie, it is straked with rowes of three colours, blacke, white, and browne Bay, about the breadth of three fingers a peece, and so meet againe together in a circle, every rowe, with his owne colour …”