160 Chinese Clay Figures 



as ivory; the term "hide," as rhinoceros-hide. 1 This inference is very 

 reasonable, for the tributes or taxes of those territories cannot have been 

 any ordinary animal teeth or hides of any kind, but they certainly were 

 those teeth and hides most highly prized in the Chou period, — and these 

 were ivory, and rhinoceros-hide desirable for body armor. 2 The sov- 

 ereigns of the Chou dynasty hunted the rhinoceros. In B.C. 965, as 

 recorded in the Annals of the Bamboo Books, Chao Wang invaded the 

 country of Ch'u, and crossing the Han River, met with a large single- 

 horned rhinoceros (or rhinoceroses). Yi Wang, in b.c. 855, captured, 

 when hunting in the forest of She, a two-horned rhinoceros, and had it 

 carried home. 3 



The rhinoceros was also pictured at an early date. When the em- 

 peror mounted his chariot, they posted on both sides of it the lords, 

 whose chariots had red wheels, two crouching rhinoceroses being repre- 

 sented on each wheel ; and they posted in front the lords, whose chariots 

 had red wheels with a single tiger represented on each wheel. 4 This 



1 Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. Ill, pp. Ill, 115; Couvreur, Chou King, pp. 71, 

 73 (see also Hirth, The Ancient History of China, p. 121). Legge remarks, "This 

 view is generally acquiesced in. Are we to suppose then that the rhinoceros and 

 elephant were found in Yang-chou in Yu's time? They may very well have been so. 

 Hu Wei observes that from the mention or supposed mention of these animals some 

 argue for the extension of the limits of the province beyond the southern mountain- 

 range to Kuang-tung, Kuang-si, and Annam, and replies that the princes might be 

 required to send articles of value and use purchased from their neighbors, as well as 

 what they could procure in their own territories." This conclusion of Hu Wei is 

 quite unnecessary. It is merely elicited by the school opinion that the geographical 

 distribution of animals must have been the same anciently as at present. There can 

 certainly be no more erroneous view. Nothing in nature remains unchangeable. All 

 the large mammals formerly had a far wider range, gradually narrowed by natural 

 events and human depredations. We are simply forced to admit that the rhinoceros, 

 as well as the elephant, existed in Yang-chou and King-chou in the times of antiquity. 

 This logically results from the Chinese records, and is a logical inference from a zoo- 

 geographic point of view. No jugglery or sophistry, like extension of geographic 

 provinces, misunderstanding of words, or introduction of bovines, is necessary to 

 explain and to understand a fact of such simplicity as this one. 



2 The skin of the rhinoceros was utilized in the Chou period also for the manu- 

 facture of a yellow glue employed for the purpose of combining the wooden and horn 

 parts of a bow (Chou li, xliv, Biot's translation, Vol. II, p. 586). The commentator 

 Wang Chao-yii of the twelfth century justly adds that either skin or horn can be made 

 into glue, but that, as far as the rhinoceros is concerned, only the skin is laid under 

 contribution to this end. Naturally, since the horn is too valuable. Cheng K'ang- 

 ch'eng assures us that in his time (second century a.d.) the stag-glue was exclusively 

 made from the antlers. It is hardly conceivable that Yang-chou and King-chou 

 should have sent as tribute bovine hides which could be obtained everywhere: the 

 specification of these territories implies a specific material peculiar to them ; of wild 

 bovines there, nothing is known. 



3 Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. Ill, Prolegomena, pp. 149, 153; Biot's translation 

 of Chu shu ki nien, pp. 41, 46 (Paris, 1842). Note that the idea of the monoceros 

 hiai-chai originated in the country of Ch'u (above, p. 115, note 2). In the Ch'un- 

 ts'iu period, as it appears from a passage of Tso chuan (Legge, Chinese Classics, 

 Vol. V, p. 289), both se and si were still plenty. 



4 Chavannes, Les M<§moires historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Vol. Ill, p. 214. 



