274 Dr. Cantor on the Flora and Fauna of Chusan, 



The causes which affect the fauna of Chusan have been no- 

 ticed in the preceding pages, and we may, from these, infer its 

 poverty in variety of forms. It has been asserted that scarcely 

 any large wild beasts are found in the Chinese empire ; a 

 dense population, which may be said to be par excellence 

 agricultural, would a priori corroborate this opinion. At Chu- 

 san, which is comparatively a young colony, deer*, which 



* It may as well be mentioned that two fine deer, Cervus Axis, of which 

 the Chinese are very fond, were brought in 1840 in a junk from Formosa 

 to Chusan. One of them, which I kept, died in the commencement of No- 

 vember, apparently from the vicissitudes of the weather. 



