REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS 201 



on the instruments. Ptolemy, Ulu Begh, De la Hire and Flamsteed all 

 contribute their quota of data but unfortunately the instruments were 

 put to but little use and in view of improvements which had already 

 been made at the time of their construction in Europe could not hope 

 to do much more than serve for demonstration purposes and relatively 

 simple observations. Herbert Chatley. 



Berthold Laufer.— The Story of the "Pinna and the, Syrian Lamb" 

 (the Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 28, No. 108, April-June 

 1915, pp. 103-128). "Optical Lenses, I. Burning -Lenses in China 

 and India" (Tung-pao, 2nd series, vol. 16, No. 2, May 1915). 

 "Card airs Suspension in China" (Holmes Anniversary volume, 

 Washington, 1916). 



Since the publication of Hirth's celebrated work "China and the 

 Roman Orient" much new information has come to hand which has 

 enlarged our knowledge of this interesting subject : the relations of the 

 realms of Ta Ts'in (the Roman or Greek near East) with China. 

 Mr. Berthold Laufer has recently — in a series of papers of different 

 sizes — further contributed to this knowledge and it seems only fit that 

 mention should be made of this here. The papers referred to are 

 remarkable by their ingenuity, by the sagacity shewn by the author, 

 and by that considerable wealth of information of which he has already 

 given so many proofs. 



I. — Pinna (or more correctly pina) is the generic name of a large 

 family of sea mussels (pinnidae) which inhabit the Mediterranean and 

 the Indian Ocean. One of these bivalves, the pinna nobilis or pinna 

 ■<<jt/(/ni(,sa possesses this peculiarity that it fastens itself to the bottom 

 of the sea by the means of a bunch of fibres which, suitably spun, can 

 be made into a tissue of the colour of dark gold. Even in our days the 

 Italians of the gulf of Taranto manufacture this particular tissue. The 

 Annals of the later Han period (25-220), the Wei-lio (written between 

 239 and 265) mention this material as being used by the inhabitants of 

 Ta-Ts'in, but they ascribe its origin to a sea-sheep. Furthermore, the 

 narrations of travellers of the middle ages mention an agnus scythicus. 

 Yule has presumed a relation to exist between the "sea-sheep" of the 

 Chinese and the "lamb" of Brother Odoric ; Hirth, in his work on 

 the Roman Orient, has made certain reservations without, however, 

 elucidating the problem ; Schlegel, on the other hand, has made the 

 matter even more obscure by many confused theories. It is Chavannes 

 who has been the first to point out that it is necessary to make a clear 

 distinction between the two notions : the sea-sheep and the Scythian 



