Fauna of Amoy. 



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though animal life is there to a small extent, it is to the plains, which 

 are inhabited and cultivated with such care by the natives, that we 

 must look for most that will interest us in our science. 



The wily fox is the first animal which we have to consider, for, 

 low as he stands in the natural series of Mammals, he is here promi- 

 nent as the largest of the Carnivora we possess ; that is to say, if we 

 lay aside the claims of the half- starved Chinese cur, to which the 

 term wild " might almost in some instances be appropriately 

 applied, and the vague rumours of the migration of tigers from the 

 mainland. The fox, the Hoo-lee of the Court dialect, and the Hill- 

 dog of the Amoy, is found, but not very abundantly, in the vichiity of 

 most of the temples, and I have myself watched it more more than 

 once stealing along noiselessly, with its conspicuous bushy tail hung 

 down, just as the setting sun was withdrawing its last rosy tints from 

 the floating clouds overhead. The low cunning of this animal is too 

 well known amongst us ; but I have never heard of any of its signal 

 feats in this part of the world, with the exception of the occasional 

 abduction of a fowl from the villagers, in defiance of the vigilance of 

 the noisy watch-cur. I have had the good fortune to obtain a cub 

 and a full-grown female of this species, and I think I can safely pro- 

 nounce it to be the same as the European Vulpes vulgaris. 



The greatest devastator among the poultry of the poor is an animal 

 belonging to the weasel family (Mustelidae), and, though generally 

 distributed, is very rarely seen. It measures about a foot and a half 

 in length, has a buff-coloured fur, with a black muzzle, and is the 

 Hw^ang-shoo-lang of the Pun-ts'aou, and the Chiah-ch'oo (tawny rat) 

 of Amoy men. The havoc it commits amongst domestic fowls is well 

 compensated for by its predilection for rats, wdiich vermin it is said 

 to destroy in large numbers. In the occasional high tides that wash 

 over the bund into the merchants' godowns here, among the numbers 

 of rats that are seen struggling near the surface of the water, driven 

 out of house and home, it is not unusual to see a few of these weasels 

 wriggling their long bodies like snakes to some place of shelter. 



Before leaving the Carnaria it would be as well to mention a 

 curious animal that was brought alive to me by a native, and which I 

 kept some months in confinement. It evidently belonged to the civet 

 family (Viverridae), measured in length one foot and a half, having 

 rather long fur of a dingy brown colour, and a black head with a 

 white line down the snout; the tail was tipped with white. At first I 

 was doubtful whether this might not be some animal brought up by a 

 Singapore junk, and not indigenous to China ; but all doubt was 



