1870.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE ZOOLOGY. 431 
home by myself, I showed to be the same as the L. japonensis, Gray, 
P. Z. 8S. 1862, p. 262 (vide P. Z. 8. 1870, p. 4). 
Cervus capreolus, L., var. pygargus, Pall. A specimen without 
horns, white rump and tail; from Pechili (the province in which 
Peking is situated). The French legation had a number of these 
alive, and they bred in confinement. The British legation had 
a couple of bucks. They are small Deer, of a deep yellowish-brown 
colour finely speckled with black, the rump marked as before said. 
Their horns are covered on the beam with short spmous processes, 
A long-tailed Capricornis from the western hills, 
Antilope gutturosa, Pall., from Mongolia. 
Lepus tolai, Pall., from near Peking. 
Gerboas from Seuen-hwafoo (marked Dipus jaculus, Pall.). 
An olive-brown Squirrel (marked Myoxus cinereus). 
A Badger very white about the neck. 
A small Arvicola, 34 inches long, 1 inch tail; back red, with black 
dorsal line; sides and underparts white. 
Mustela sibirica, M. foina, and light-brown Mele-rat. 
Mus decumanus, M. minutus, and a Hedgehog. 
A Spermolegus marked as a Cricetus. 
A small short-tailed Fox. 
A kind of Wild Cat closely allied to Felis catus of Europe. 
And a fine pair of horns of Llaphurus davidianus. 
These were all the Mammals exhibited. M. David must have 
consigned most of his collections in this branch to the Paris Museum. 
The dust and heat were insufferable ; and the great city is of such 
a huge extent that there was no getting out of it for a run into the 
fields without making a day of it. I was tired of watching the Rooks 
and Sparrows disporting themselves among the trees of the legation, 
and the myriad Swifts that were constantly skimming the air above, 
and of listening to the melancholy moaning of the Pigeons that flew in 
flocks round and round. (The Chinese attach little hollow gourds, or 
light reed-pipes slit at their tops, to the base of the Pigeon’s tail. 
These face the wind and produce zeolian music as the bird flies. In 
every flock two or three Pigeons carry these whistles.) Closed in 
by its lofty walls, one feels buried in Peking. It requires a gale to 
make a free circulation of air; and then the dust overwhelms 
you and penetrates every part of your person and every nook of 
your house. To lay the dust many of the main thoroughfares are 
watered with human urine for lack of water. One longed for wings 
to rise above the close and unwholesome atmosphere, and envied the 
Swifts. 
On the 2nd of July I was enabled to find relief in the western 
hills, where large temples abound, situated at all heights, in pictu- 
resque places, and where among the trees and grassy slopes the cool 
breeze searches you out and makes you feel a different being. The 
Europeans in Peking find life insupportable in the city during the 
great heat of the summer; and most of them spend the greater part 
of that season among these hills—parties of them uniting and fitting 
up the native temples. Some go to the nearest hills (twelve miles 
