THE CHARACTERISTIC FAUNA OF CHINA.
THERE is a general impression about Chinese animals, as . about the Chinese people, that they are quaint, in- effectual, and of no particular use except to Chinamen. Whether the Chinese pug-dogs, their hollow-backed pigs, or dwarfed trees, or the absence of almost any good books on sport in the Forbidden Empire, have given rise to this idea, it is a very mistaken one. In Northern Asia the species increase not only in numbers but in size the further East the region ; and in Northern China their numbers are greatest and their size most remarkable. Take, for instance, the deer. The big red stag of the Caucasus is surpassed by those of Eastern Siberia; and in the Altai and the Thian Shan Mountains it has become either a giant red-deer, or, as is now believed, its place is taken by an Asiatic wapiti, which if not quite so large as the monsters of the Rocky Mountains, has the largest antlers of any existing deer. Besides these, roebuck are common, as well as several species of smaller deer, among them one resembling the Japanese stag now introduced into our parks, .Swinhoe's deer in Formosa, hornless water-deer, and in the hunting park of the Emperor at Pekin a deer whose native home is not certainly known, and which was dis- covered by Pere David when taking a peep into the forbidden precinct over the park wall. The largest tigers in the world are found in Manchuria, and wild boars, leopards, tiger-cats, while lynxes, with brown bears in the North, and black bears in the South, make up a large fauna of sufficient distinction for a. Chinese censor to be proud of. In the Tartar camel the Empire owns the best beast of burden in the world; it produces the best of all ponies; and though the yellow Chinese cow is small, it is good and prolific, a very even cross, as it would seem, between the humped cattle of India and the boo taunts of Europe. The distinguished Chinese naturalist who described the indigenous animals in the Tailvanfoo Gazetteer notes that Formosan bears have such thick bristles that arrows cannot pierce their bodies, that they climb trees and sit on the top cross-legged, that their bellies contain much suet, and that their paws, as delicacies, are " among the eight pearls." The venison, on the other hand, he considers "not fit to pick up with chopsticks." But that is probably because the Chinese everywhere kill the stags when they are out of season, in order to secure the half-grown horns to make a youth-restoring patent medicine. Badgers, civets, and moit'small fur-bearing animals abound in the mountains, and otters on the rivers; the latter are sometimes trained to fish, or rather to hunt fish into nets.
If it were asked what is. the most distinctive class in the Chinese fauna, we should name the pheasants. Pheasants are native to the whole of Northern Asia, from the Caucasus to the Pacific ; but nowhere are there so many varieties, and nowhere does their decoration show such brilliant hues, or such rich fertility of natural design. There must be elements in the soil or environment of China, in both North and South, which -promote brilliance of colour, and something very like the ultimate expression of beauty of which hues and contrasts allow. It is not warmth of climate only, for some of these brilliant birds live in the temperate and cold parts of the country. Reeve's pheasant, for instance, with its five-foot tail, and plumage of scales of gold, lives in the cold moun- tains of the North. But in the birds of China colour is at its purest and brightest, and in the manufactures and fabrics of the country these pure and brilliant colours are equally present. There is no such blue, or scarlet, or crimson, or yellow, or peach-colour in art as in the silks and porcelains of China, and- to no large birds has Nature been -equally lavish: of masses of brilliant colour, and its arrangement, as to the Chinese pheasant? The-" Flower Pheasant "• which we have named after Lord...Amherst has in its plumage light blue, green tipped with crimson, white edged with dark green, metallic emerald tipped with velvet black, saffron -yellow, scarlet and white. The only thing in the world at all like these pheasants is a box of salmon-flies. But both this bird, and the golden pheasant scarcely less, seem, like the salmon- fly, to have been " dressed" in a selection of the most exquisite and resplendent plumes taken from the backs of all the other birds in the world. This is the descrip- tion of the place in which the flower pheasants are found. sent by Pere Carman, a French missionary.--"It always inhabits very rocky places. When the streams are frozen and the mountains covered with snow the Flower Pheasants are obliged to descend to the streams for water. The mountains are covered with brambles, briars, and thorns, and also with grassy lawns. There the pheasant is seen in abundance. It is an error to think that, like other pheasants, it is found in forests. I have never found it there, and as in the neighbour- hood of Ta-lin-pin it only exists where there are no forests, I doubt much whether wooded country is to its taste. The more rocky and desolate the mountains, the more likely you are to find the Flower Pheasants, in companies of from twenty to thirty." In the northern mountains a quaint variety of the pheasant is found, which is so ready to become domesticated that it is matter for surprise that it has not been made part of our permanent poultry supply. If so, it would be an addition to our farmyard, because it is a true game bird, and has the game flavour. It is the Eared Pheasant, and is found in the hills north of Pekin. Its colour is sober, mainly dark brown, but on either side of the tail it has a beautiful plume of white, like an ostrich feather. Mr. Tegetmeier, who is no advocate for promiscuous acclimatisation, says of this bird :—" It possesses the rare- instinct for domestication. I have seen specimens in the Welsh hills as tame as barndoor fowls. In the closely confined pens in our Zoological Gardens their increase has not been very rapid, but they have proied themselves as hardy and prolific as common turkeys would have been if placed in a like position."
Very early in the world's history the nations of the West recognised that China produced certain things which were unmatched and unknown elsewhere, but naturally the living treasures of the country did not find their way elsewhere as soon as the silks and the tea. How eager those merchants who found the sea-passage to China were to bring over these fine birds is shown by the very early date at which they were taken on board ship. Vasco da Gama only found the way to India round the Cape in 1497. Sixteen years later the Portuguese had acclimatised the ring-necked pheasant, the Far Eastern form of our common pheasant, in the island of St. Helena, where probably Mr. Cronje will have the pleasure of dining off descendants of the birds then " planted," for they throve greatly. It was to feed another set of rebels and malcontents that the pheasants were sent there. Fernandez Lopes, who deserted from the army of Albu- querque at Goa, was exiled and banished with a number of negroes to St. Helena, and supplied with " roots, seeds, poultry, and pheasants." When the Elizabethan explorer Cavendish visited the island in 1588 he found these ring- necked pheasants in great abundance there. In 1875 they were still very numerous, and not in any way altered in plumage • from the indigenous stock of North China. Recently the same bird has almost replaced our common pheasant. America has also imported it, a form of Chinese immigration which is highly popular. A list of nine States was recently given in which the Chinese pheasants are thriving and in- creasing, often with State aid and protection. In Oregon it is mid that the golden pheasant is also established in a wild condition.
For numbers, and perhaps for variety, no waterfowl equal those of China. The air is simply black with them over the rivers and marshes near the coast at flight time. Ornament, even in these ornamental birds, is carried to the extreme in some of the Chinese varieties. The Mandarin teal is the gayest as well as the most fanci- fully plumed of all ducks. Nor are the fish of the Flowery Land in any way behind the birds in gorgeous and striking colour. The Chinese are perfectly aware of the artistic rarity and value of all these creatures. They use them and the ideas they suggest to the best advantage, and that is why Chinese gardens are far the most beautiful in the world. They are landscape gardeners by birth and tradition. Consequently their pleasure-grounds are broken by lakes, -pools, clumps of trees, and wildernesses of just the right size and setting. But to these they give colour, first by borrowing
hints from the plumage of the birds, and covering their garden houses with crimson, blue, scarlet, and gold ; and, secondly, by filling their fountains with brilliant-coloured fish and cover- ing their pools with beautiful water birds. Goldfish were originally brought from China, and until quite recent times were called. " China fish." But a far more beautiful creature is the -paradise fish, which is kept as a garden and domestic decoration. Its body is striped with scarlet and gold, and its fins are like long waving flags of the same brilliant hues. They have recently been imported into this country, but need water of a higher temperature than can be found outside an aquarium.
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