CHINA. 423 



toms are hardly to be comprehended. When I was a child, the 

 one fact I learnt about Chinamen was that they wore pigtails, 

 and I was led to regard that as an extraordinary and peculiar 

 form of hairdressing ; yet the very same fashion had only very 

 shortly gone out of general use amongst Englishmen ; a rudiment 

 of the English pigtail still exists on our court dresses, and foot- 

 men of Eoyal state carriages, wear a shortened pigtail still, on 

 certain occasions at least. 



The women present at Chinese banquets, such as that de- 

 scribed, sit behind the chairs of the men, and receive no share of 

 the luxuries, but are supplied with dried melon seeds, in the 

 cracking and extraction of the kernels of which they occupy 

 their time. 



Whilst at Canton, I visited the shop of a Wholesale Chinese 

 Chemist and Druggist, in order to try and select specimens of 

 Dragons' bones which are a highly-prized specific for certain 

 diseases in Chinese Medicine. The wholesale dealer, whose 

 warehouse was very large and full of Chinese medicines in bulk, 

 had no " Dragons' bones and teeth " in stock, but I bought a 

 few specimens from retail druggists who sell them by weight. 



The " Dragons' teeth and bones " consist of the fossil teeth 

 and bones of various extinct Mammalia of tertiary age, such as 

 those of Rhinoceros trichorhinus, a Mastodon, an Elephant, a 

 Horse, two species of a Hippotherium, two of a species of Stag, 

 and the teeth of a large Carnivorous animal.* 



The drug is imported into Japan, and I saw samples exposed 

 in a collection of Materia Meclica at the Kioto Exhibition. 



The chief interest in the " Dragons' bones and teeth," seems 

 to me to be that they explain the origin of the Dragon itself, 

 and very possibly of other mythical animals. All mythical 

 animals have a strong foundation in fact and a developmental 

 history. In most instances, no doubt, the mythical animal is 

 derived from a traveller's description, or a description passed on 



* For a description of a collection of these objects, by Prof. Owen, 

 see "Quart. Journal of Geological Sec," 1870, p. 417. 



See also D. Hanbury, " On Chinese Materia Medica," p. 40. London, 

 1862. 



Swinhoe refers to a collection of Dragons' bones in " Chinese Zoology," 



Proc. Zool. Soc, 1870, p. 428. 



