History of the Rhinoceros 149 



Li Shi-chen himself, the author of the Pen ts'ao kang mu, sums up as 

 follows: "The habitat of the rhinoceros is in the regions of the Si Fan, 1 

 the southern Tibetan tribes (Nan Fan), the southern portions of Yun- 

 nan, and in Kiao-chou, and occurs there everywhere. There are three 

 species, — the mountain-rhinoceros, the water-rhinoceros, and the se si. 

 There is, further, a hairy rhinoceros resembling the mountain-rhinoceros, 

 and living in hilly forests; great numbers of it are captured by men. 

 The water-rhinoceros makes its permanent abode in water, and is there- 

 fore very difficult to capture. It has, in all, two horns. The horn 

 on its nose is long, that on its forehead is short. The skin of the water- 

 rhinoceros has a pearl-like armor, 2 but not so the mountain-rhinoceros. 



des voyages faits par les Arabes, Vol. I, p. 29). Reinaud (Vol. II, pp. 68, 69) com- 

 ments on this point that the Chinese are satisfied to compare the designs with flowers 

 and millet-seeds, and do not discover in them half of the things which the Arabs saw 

 in them. It seems to me that the Arabs, in this case, merely reproduce the ideas of the 

 Chinese. The philosophy of these designs was fully developed in the T'ang period. 

 K'ou Tsung-shi speaks of real objects visible in the horn; and Wang P'i-chi, in his 

 Sheng shui yen Van lu (p. 135), offers an elaborate contribution to this question. Ac- 

 cording to him, "the designs in the horn from Kiao-chi are like hemp-seeds, the horn 

 being dry, a bit warm, and glossy; the horn imported on ships and coming from the 

 Arabs has patterns like chu yii flowers [this name applies to three different plants: 

 Bretschneider, Bot. Sin., pt. 2, No. 498], is glossy and brilliant with colors, some 

 resembling dog-noses, as if they were glossed with fat; others with floral designs 

 and strange objects, these horns being styled t'ung t'ien si; some like sun and stars, 

 others like clouds and moon; some like the corolla of a flower, some like scenery; 

 some have birds and mammals, others dragons and fishes; some have deities, others 

 palaces; and there are even costume and cap, eyes and eyebrows, staff and footgear 

 [conveying the illusion of the picture of a wanderer], beasts, birds, and fishes. When 

 the horn is completed into a carving, as if it were a veritable picture, it is highly 

 esteemed by the people. The prices are fluctuating, and it is unknown how they 

 are conditioned." There is assuredly an inward relation between the statements of 

 this account and the Arabic texts of Damiri quoted by Reinaud (Vol. II, p. 69). 

 It is hardly necessary to insist on the chronological point that Damiri (1344-1405) 

 wrote his zoological dictionary Haydt el-haiwdn (C. Huart, Literature arabe, 

 p. 365, Paris, 1902) several centuries after Wang P'i-chi (end of eleventh century). 

 From a psychological point of view, the dependence of the Arabs in this matter on the 

 philosophy of the Chinese is self-evident. Neither the classical world nor ancient 

 India has developed any similar thoughts; and this subject is decidedly Chinese, with 

 a strong Taoist flavor of nature sentiment. It must not be overlooked, either, that 

 al-Beru.ni (Sachau, Alberuni's India, Vol. I, p. 204) merely states that "the shaft of 

 the horn is black inside, and white everywhere else," and that he is entirely reticent 

 about figures in the horn. The Arabs interested in the trade of the horn to China 

 imbibed this lesson, and propagated it themselves in catering to the taste of their 

 customers. The question is whether, in the interest of the business, they did not help 

 nature by art, and may have produced several of the more fanciful designs artificially. 

 This, however, is no matter of great concern; and the fact remains that bristly fibres 

 of various tinges compose the horn, and result in a natural play of design anH color 

 which is apt to arouse the imaginative power of a susceptible mind. 



1 Western Tibetan tribes; from our standpoint, eastern Tibetans. 



2 I take this to be identical with what our zoologists say in regard to the skin of 

 the Asiatic species, which "has the appearance of a rigid armor studded with tuber- 

 cles." The whole skin of the Javan species, as already remarked by B. Cuvier 

 (The Animal Kingdom, Vol. I, p. 157, London, 1834), is covered with small compact 

 angular tubercles. Joannes Raius (Synopsis methodica animalium quadrupedum, 

 p. 122, Londini, 1693) describes the skin of the rhinoceros thus: "Auriculae porcinae, 



