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Show 1870.] MR. R. SWINHOE ON CHINESE ZOOLOGY. 429 monsters who were incessantly fighting and killing one another, until man came on the scene and initiated a more peaceful state of things by clearing the country and cultivating it. The monsters were large and powerful brutes ; and in their teeth and bones existed their strength ; hence the remains of these ground to powder and taken internally must give strength to the weak invalid. For the same purpose Tiger's bones are also in favour. Mr. Kingsmill had managed to get together a very nice series. He had also specimens, chiefly of fossil plants, of his own collecting. At Chefoo, on the 21st of May, all the Gulls I saw about the harbour were Larus melanurus, Temm. et Schleg. About Tientsin, on the 25th of May, Swifts were abundant. On the 27th I arrived at Peking, and learned, to m y great annoyance, that Pere David had left the same morning for Tientsin on his wa}- south. He was bound on a three years' exploring tour into Szechuen, bordering Thibet. I had counted on his assistance in working the northern birds, and his departure was a great blow to me. I nevertheless lost no time in visiting the Lazarist mission called Paitang, near the north-west gate of the Tartar city. The priests were very polite and courteous, aud led us to the museum ; but none of them knew any thing about the treasures it contained : the soul of the place was gone. W e were escorted into a building on the left of the cathedral; and judge of m y surprise when I found myself in a large room with glass cabinets all round and glass-faced tables up and down the middle, as neatly got up as in any museum in Europe. Three sides of the room were devoted to birds and mammals, the cabinets being divided by horizontal shelves, on which were placed specimens elegantly mounted on stands. The fourth, or side through which we entered, exhibited astronomical and other instruments, and an assortment of minerals. The tables contained Butterflies and Beetles pinned and arranged. The zoological specimens were for the most part from the neighbourhood of Peking, and had been collected by the Pere Armand David. The zeal and enthusiasm of the Abbe for scientific pursuits must indeed be great to have enabled him to accomplish all we saw before us, in a remote place like Peking, in the space of four and a half years; and how commendable the liberality of a religious mission to give so much space, labour, and money for providing a kind of instruction to the youths of their school which in England and Europe generally is considered of a very secondary and even unnecessary character! I trust many of the Chinese pupils will be won over by the attractions of the museum to the study of the natural history of their country ; but 1 fear it is a vain hope. The priests told us that the natives took very little interest in the prepared specimens. I paid during my stay in Peking three visits to the museum. The priests were surprised at m y coming so often ; but I could have spent weeks there to advantage. All the species that Pere David had collected were not there. They told m e that he bad sent large collections to Paris, and that none remained hut those here exhibited. How I longed for the worthy P R O C ZOOL. Soc-1870, No. XXIX. |