CANTON-SHANGHAI 
133 
24 hours each reduced the applicants to 88, who then had to go to 
far Pekin for a further process of elimination. The happy survivors, 
sooner or later, obtained appointments in the public service. And 
so it befell that this, the oldest and most elaborate Examination 
System that the world has seen, resulted in—perhaps the most in¬ 
competent body of officials in the world. I use the past tense, for 
we were told that the examination held the year before our visit was 
the last of the old regime—for in these days even China moves, or 
at any rate talks of moving. 
Though the Canton Examination Hall is not much like the 
Schools of my own University, yet it seemed appropriate to take 
from such a spot some few specimens to enrich the cabinets of the 
Hope Department of the Oxford Museum. The courtyard was 
weedy enough to harbour such a domestic-looking butterfly as Ganoris 
canidia , one of them a dwarf, as well as the more interesting Grapta 
aureum, Linn., the Oriental Comma, which was flying about in 
some numbers. I also secured a single example of the Acraeine, 
Pareba vesta , Eabr., the only one that I have seen alive. 
In the somewhat dreary and prison-like British Concession the 
insignificant Zizera argia , f. similis, was to be seen in abundance. 
The voyage northwards along the China Coast is remarkable for 
the number of stacks, or isolated rocks, most of them bearing lonely 
lighthouses. We wondered much how the fishermen dared go so far 
out in the picturesque, but cumbrous and ill-sailing junks, and heard 
tales of the frightful losses in typhoons. But were the ships of our 
own navy between the days of Alfred and the Great Harry so very 
different ? 
On the night of April 23rd, after leaving Shanghai, when near 
the mouth of the Yang-tse-Kiang, a Cirphis (Leucania) unipuncta, 
Haw., came to the lights of the “ Empress of India.” It is a far- 
ranging species. 
Whenever I have seen the Ked Sea it has been blue, but we 
found the Yellow Sea true to its name. A Londoner like myself 
may venture to think that he knows something about fog; if, also 
like myself, he has been up the St. Lawrence and on the Banks of 
Newfoundland, he is apt to think he knows all about fog. Imagine, 
then, my surprise on learning from the captain that in the southern 
part of the Yellow Sea fog is so prevalent that it is often difficult to 
“ make ” Japan. 
