Quadrupeds. 7703 



has already nearly lost all ihe white marks. I hear that there are several more of the 

 same species in the possession of a mandarin here, and I intend shortly visiting him 

 to inspect them. As far as I have yet asceviained, the species is purely Formosan ; a 

 larger slag, with large branching horns and having a redder coat (i.e. summer vesture), 

 replacing it in Shantung and North China. This other species I am assured is also 

 found in Formosa, but this requires confirmation. The small muntjnc (Cervulus 

 Reevesii), ' ]i\nn' of this dialect, is abundant in Formosa, having myself met with it 

 there and seen skius. The other deer-skins shown me on my tour round Formosa 

 were all of the spotted species. You say that no elaphine deer are found, in India, 

 south of the Himalayas. Let me remark that this deer is from Formosa, where I have 

 seen mountains covered with snow in summer ; and it is most probable that these 

 animals are sold by the savages to the Chinese settlers, as in our inland tour over the 

 hills for some forty miles we met none, and the Chinese spoke of them as coming 

 from the mountains, and of their skins as formini; articles of barter. We have a 

 Japanese deer at Amoy with horns short and somewhat like those of the Formosan. It 

 is not so elegant as mine, shorter in the legs, about the same beij^ht, and of a far more 

 stag-like aspect. This,! doubt not, is theCervulusSikaof Schlegel ; but what our large 

 northern sla- can be I have not had the opportunity to ascertain. There are a few of 

 the horns of the Formosan species to be got, which I will try to procure for you."-7rf. 

 The Pangolin.— The Chinese, like the natives of India, class the pangolin as a fish, 

 and it is curious that both people approximate it to certain carps. Thus, in India, 

 this animal is known as the jungli-malch (jungle-fish) or Ban rohi (jungle rohi), in 

 reference to the Rohita vulgaris, or Cyprinus rohila of B. Hamilton. In some amusing 

 notices of Chinese Natural History, published in the ' Chinese Repository' for 1838, 

 p. 48, we find the pangolin thus described :-" The ling-le, or ' hill carp,' is so called, 

 says the ' Pun Tsaou,' because its shape and appearance resemble those of the le or 

 carp ; and since it resides on land, in caves and hills, it is called ' ling,' a character 

 compounded of ' yu,' fish, joined to the right half of ' ling,' a high rocky place. It 

 has by some been termed the ' lung-le,' or ' dragon-carp," because it has the scales of 

 the dragon ; and by others ' chuen shan keas,' or ' boring hill-scales,' because it is the 

 scaly animal that burrows in the hills: the last name is the one by which the creature 

 is best known among the people of Canton. An ancient name is ' shih ling yu,' or 

 ' stony hill-fish,' given to il because the scales on its tail have three corners, like the 

 • ling kea,' or ' water calthrops,' and are very hard. This animal, for which the 

 Chinese have as many synonyms as some anomalous perch or Hedysarum, is the ma- 

 uls, pangolin, or scaly ant-eater, and is often seen in the hands of the people of Can- 

 ton, by whom it is regarded as a very curious ' muster.' They consider it as ' a fish 

 out of water,' an anomaly irreconcileable with any classification ; and in the standard 

 treatises on Natural History il is placed among the crocodiles and fishes." Further 

 details are given ; but I pass to an amusing description of this animal by the old 

 Dutch traveller Linschoten, transited into quaint old English. He, too, describes it 

 as " a strange Indian fish," caught in the river of Goa ; " the picture whereof, by 

 commandment of the Archbishop of that city, was painted, and for a wonder sent to 

 the king of Spaine." He says :— " Il was in bignesse as great as a middle-sized dog, 

 with a snout like a hog, small eyes, no eares [the particular species has a small ear- 

 conch], but two lobes where his eares shoidd be ; it had foure feele like an elephant, 

 the tayle beginning somewhat upon the backe, broad and then flat, and at the very 

 end round and somewhat sharpe. It ranne along the hall upon the floore, and in 



