Page:An alphabetical index to the Chinese encyclopaedia.pdf/16

xii or acquired. Extending over 376 chüan, it forms a repertory of female biography such as no other nation, even at the present day, can make any pretence of rivalling. The subhead 閨節 'Widows who refuse to marry a second time', with its 210 chüan, is in itself the equivalent of a voluminous work, being only exceeded in length by 'Medicine' in section XVII.

XVII. 藝術 is a very comprehensive section, next in point of size to VI, though the number of subheads (43) is not particularly large. The principal ones are: Agriculture, Medicine (a huge assemblage of treatises and extracts from medical literature), Divination, Astrology, Physiognomy and Palmistry, Geomancy, Prognostication and Magic, Painting and Drawing. Sheaves of biographies, as usual, accompany these. Mayers' 'Arts and Divination' is an improvement on Klaproth's 'Arts magiques'. But the underlying idea of the section is really that of 'skilled occupation or profession', a term which covers not only the above but also some further subheads which at first sight appear arbitrarily thrown in: 'Kite-flying' and other games, for instance, are found side by side with 'Bravos and hired assassins', 'Beggars', and 'Actors'.

XVIII. 神異 'Spirits and the Supernatural' may conveniently, and with sufficient accuracy, be set down as 'Religion'—without the addition 'and phenomena', which was a feeble attempt on Mayers' part to translate 異. The section opens with a list of popular deities, and the rest is devoted to various departments of Buddhism and Taoism, with numerous biographies, especially of priests and 'immortals'.

XIX. 禽蟲 is an enumeration of species of the Animal Kingdom, distributed under Birds, Beasts, Fishes, and a fourth class comprising Insects and Reptiles. After those considered important enough for a separate subhead are added 'miscellaneous' and 'strange' (in many cases, fabulous) members of each class. In forming the subheads, more regard has been paid to names than to really distinctive characteristics. Thus, under 鳩 and 雞 we find a lot of utterly dissimilar birds brought together, simply because one of the above characters happens to form part of the names by which they are popularly known. There are no very long subheads, 'Horse' being the only one which exceeds 10 chüan.

XX. 草木 'The Vegetable Kingdom' is even more unscientifically subdivided than the preceding section. Even the following rough divisions are somewhat difficult to make out: (1) Cereals and Vegetables; (2) Flowering Plants; (3) Medicinal Plants: (4) Trees and Shrubs. Here again, as in section VII, plurality of nomenclature is often likely to prove a serious stumbling-block. As a rule, however, it is the recognised classical name which is given in each case, local and other designations being prefixed under the heading 釋名. Great pains have been taken to increase the usefulness of this section to botanists by identifying as many of the plants as possible according to the best two authorities, Dr. Augustine Henry and the late Dr. Bretschneider in his invaluable Botanicon Sinicum. Thanks to their investigations, only a relatively small proportion of the 700 entries have had to remain in their original Chinese form. 'Bamboo', it may be mentioned, with 11 chüan, is the longest of the subheads.

XXI. 經籍 'Canonical and other Literature' begins with an unusually long 'general subhead' (50 chüan), after which nearly three-quarters of the remaining space