Fondness for tending the Grasshopper. 441 



such as small figures, mannikins, &c., are very cheap, and 

 are much the same as those imported to Europe. 



One marked partiality of the Chinese is their fondness for 

 suspending grasshoppers in small elegant baskets of bamboo 

 strips, or twisted wire, in which, whatever the season or the 

 weather, these little captives keep up a constant pleasant 

 chirping. This custom is of great antiquity, and while one 

 even now finds among the populace of the present day some 

 of these chirpers thus carefully tended, there once was a time 

 when the grasshopper was the object of universal adoration, 

 and enjoyed all the honours of Fashion. They were indebted 

 for this singular good fortune, according to the abb(^ Grosier,* 

 to a poor scholar under the Thang dynasty, in the 7th cen- 

 tury of our era, who to relieve his poverty fell upon the 

 singular expedient of trading in these insects. He went into 

 the country, selected the most beautiful insects he could find, 

 constructed elegant little cages for them, and returning to the 

 city offered them for sale in the most firequented streets of 

 Tschang-gan. The idea was novel, and the wealthy upper 

 classes speedily found a charm in having the music of the 

 fields thus transplanted into their houses. The Empress, the 

 Queens, the ladies of the Palace, in a word, every one was 

 eager to possess these songsters of the meadow. There was 

 actually an enactment passed for the supply of the Imperial 

 Palace with the requisite number of these insects. The fash- 

 ion rose to a perfect mania — the little Zii-peru was en- 



* Dtscription gene rule de la Chine. 



