848 The American Naturalist. [September, 
century before Christ. The enormous quantities of valuable ivory 
which the remains of the mammoth in Siberia furnish made known to 
the ancient Chinese the existence of the animal through their trade 
with Tartary. On account of its being found in very many localities 
imbedded in the soil and in rocks, old books always speak of it asa 
monstrous mole living underground. It was found, they tell us, in 
China and in Tartary. Chuang-tse wrote as a poet, and pictures it 
(yen shu) as drinking a river of water before its thirst was satisfied. 
IIe had been told of the fossil bones or had seen them, and filled up the 
picture by the aid of imagination, either his own, or that of those from 
whom he heard the story. Seven centuries afterwards a medical 
writer, Tao Hung-king, says: ‘‘It is found in forests, and is as large 
as a water buffalo, It is in form something like a pig. Its color is a 
greyish-red. Its feet are like those of the elephant. Its breast and 
upper tail are white, and blunt though powerful. Its flesh is eaten, 
and is like that of the cow. It is known by the name ‘ King of the 
Shu tribe.” In calamitous years this animal often appears.’’ 
In the seventh century this account of the animal was discredited. 
Its great size was not believed. Its hiding and walking in the earth 
were thought absurd. These disparaging criticisms were made by 
hén T’sang-chi, an eminent writer, who does not seem to have been 
shown any of the bones of the animal. Yet in the eleventh century 
Su Sung defended the statements of early writers on the subject. 
Bones of some large unknown animal had been found at T’sangchou, 
near Tientsin, just as the ZXzz History states that at Siuencheng, a 
little way southwest of Nanking, there had been found similar remains 
in the third century. It was also related that the same animal existed 
in Tartary, where the larger specimens weighed one thousand catties, 
and was fond of living in water. It was like an elephant in the legs, 
though it had the hoofs of a donkey. Another place where it was 
found was at Tsiuning, near Pingyang Fu in Shansi. The people 
called it the “recumbent cow." It used to wander among the moun- 
tains at times, and drop its hair in the fields. Each one became a 
rat, and great was the damage to the crops. The Liang history says 
that in Japan there is a large animal like a cow of the Shu class, which 
is eaten by a great serpent. These are all instances of the mammoth 
(“ hidden, sz") and prove the correctness of Tao’s words, Tao has 
been blamed without reason by men who had not themselves inquired 
into the truth of his statements. The name by which this animal is 
known in Shensi is **the small donkey." Such are the testimonies of 
the existence of the mammoth collected by the author of the Pent’ sao. 
