262 Mr. R. Swinhoe on the Ornithology of Foochow. 



of nature's great regenerator. The hill-sides on either hand 

 were almost entirely denuded of trees, and showed small signs of 

 bird or human life. A few grass-cutters, mostly females, were 

 the only bipeds. We met several parties of them, with their 

 loads of grass, jogging down the hill, laughing and chatting to 

 one another in happy mood. These peasant-women, though 

 much browned by their constant outdoor life, are justly celebrated 

 throughout China for their beauty of form and often of features. 

 They trim their hair, in quaint but tasteful style, with large, bent 

 silver skewers ; and their nether limbs, not cramped and ban- 

 daged as customary among most Chinese women, are often sym- 

 metrically formed, and revealed to an extent that many of our 

 fair countrywomen would think extremely indelicate. But the 

 same ideas of decency do not obtain in all countries. We now 

 pass up to the monastery. 



Let Bhudda's votaries ascend this height to pay their homage 

 to the Kooshan shrine, and gaze with awe upon the wondrous 

 relics therein preserved ! We love not Bhudda's faith nor Bhud- 

 da's lore ; so our readers need not be afraid of our going into 

 ecstasies at all the mirabilia that the monastery contains. But 

 we cannot pass without mentioning one relic that is interest- 

 ing to a naturalist, though in a diflferent light from what it is to 

 the enlightened worshippers of the mighty Fo. It is what the 

 Chinese believe to be one of the molars of that once incarnate 

 deity, bequeathed by him to certain beloved disciples in the West, 

 when he was about to shuffle off this mortal coil and return to 

 that nonentical existence to which all good Bhuddists aspire. 

 By these worthy disciples it was deposited in this great monastery 

 to be worshipped in awe, as a token of the great love their master 

 bore mankind by deserting the bliss above to become flesh 

 for their sakes. Suffice it to say that, if it actually did 

 belong to Bhudda, that worthy must have entered flesh and 

 inculcated his divine principles under the form of a mammoth ; 

 for there can be no doubt that it is a fossil tooth, and belonging 

 to one of that series of Tertiary Mammals that Prof. Owen has 

 introduced to the civilized world with so much learaing and 

 skill. 



The monastery, with its numerous apartments and various 



