126 Chinese Clay Figures 



It was styled also "great horse bird." 1 Its resemblance to the 

 camel was emphasized, and hence the name "camel-bird" was formed. 

 Living ostriches were sent to China again in the T'ang period. In 

 650 Tokhara offered large birds seven feet high, of black color, with feet 

 resembling those of the camel, marching with outspread wings, able to 

 run three hundred li a day, and to swallow iron; they were styled camel- 

 birds. 2 The T'ang artists, accordingly, were in a position to witness 

 and to study live specimens of the bird; and the fact that they really 

 did so leaks out in the realistic high-relief carvings referred to above. 

 But what do we find among the latter-day draughtsmen who en- 

 deavored to illustrate the creature for books? 



Fig. 16 shows the woodcut with which the Pin ts l ao hang mu of 

 Li Shi-chen is adorned. Bretschneider (/. c.) , in a somewhat generous 

 spirit, designated it as "a rude, but tolerably exact drawing of the 

 camel-bird." Forke 3 holds that this ostrich is pictured like a big goose, 

 but with the feet of a mammal; and he comes far nearer to the truth. 

 Li Shi-chen, born in K'i chou in the province of Hu-pei, spent his life- 



name "bird of Parthia" (An-si, Arsak), but that in fact these birds originated from 

 T'iao-chi, that is, Desht Misan or Mesene, where ruled Arabic princes who had all 

 facilities for obtaining ostriches from Arabia. This theory does not seem necessary 

 to me. As already observed by Bretschneider (Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, p. 53; 

 and Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, pp. 144-145), the ostrich is described in Wei shu 

 as a bird indigenous to Persia (compare also Sui shu, Ch. 83, p. 7 b; Pet shi, Ch. 97, 

 p. 8), and is again mentioned in the T'ang Annals as a Persian bird; there is, on the 

 other hand, the testimony of the Persian authors and of Xenophon (Anabasis, 1, 5), 

 who saw the bird on the banks of the Euphrates; and up to the present time, ostriches 

 are met with, though not frequently, in western Asia. Handcock (/. c, p. 25) ob- 

 serves that the ostrich appears in Mesopotamian art at a late period, though in Elam 

 rows of ostriches are found depicted on early pottery, closely and inexplicably re- 

 sembling the familiar ostriches on the pre-'dynastic pottery of ancient Egypt; it 

 sometimes, however, assumes a conspicuous position in the embroidery of an Assyrian 

 king's robe, and is found also on a chalcedony seal in Paris. Further references to 

 Assyrian representations are given by O. Keller (/. c, pp. 172, 594). In ancient 

 Syria, the ostrich is well attested by the interesting description in Job (xxxix, 13-18), 

 — Moses prohibited the flesh of the bird as unclean food, — and by reliefs at Hiera- 

 polis of Roman times. It further occurs in the Syrian version of the Physiologus. 

 Brehm (Tierleben, Vol. Ill, p. 692) sums up, "In Asia, the area of the habitat of 

 the ostrich may formerly have been much more extended than at present; but even 

 now, as established by Hartlaub with as much diligence as erudition, it occurs in the 

 deserts of the Euphrates region, especially the Bassida and Dekhena, in all suitable 

 localities of Arabia, and finally in some parts of southern Persia. Vamb6ry even learned 

 that it is still sometimes found on the lower course of the Oxus, in the region of 

 Kungrad (?), and is named there camel or coffer bird." Also in the Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica (Vol. XX, p. 362) it is said, "It is probable that it still lingers in the 

 wastes of Kirwan in eastern Persia, whence examples may occasionally stray north- 

 ward to those of Turkestan, even near the lower Oxus." 



1 Ts'ien Han shu, Ch. 96 a, p. 6 b. In this passage the bird is noticed as a native 

 of Parthia, and commented on by Yen Shi-ku. 



2 Chavannes, Documents, p. 156. In the period K'ai-yuan (713-741) ostrich 

 eggs were sent from Sogdiana (ibid., p. 136). 



» L. c, p. 138. 



