PREFACE.

The Author has to express his great obligations to many gentlemen who have assisted him in the preparation of this volume, either by affording access to their libraries, or by furnishing or revising translations from the Chinese, &c.; and he must especially tender them to J. Haas, Esq., the Austro-Hungarian Vice-Consul at Shanghai, to Mr. Thomas Kingsmill and the Rev. W. Holt of Shanghai, to Mr. Falconer of Hong-Kong, and to Dr. N. B. Dennys of Singapore.

For the sake of uniformity, the author has endeavoured to reduce all the romanised representations of Chinese sounds to the system adopted by S. W. Williams, whose invaluable dictionary is the most available one for students. No alteration, however, has been made when quotations from eminent sinologues like Legge have been inserted.

Should the present volume prove sufficiently interesting to attract readers, a second one will be issued at a future date, in continuation of the subject.

June, 1884.

NOTE BY THE PUBLISHERS.

The Publishers think it right to state that, owing to the Author’s absence in China, the work has not had the advantage of his supervision in its passage through the press. It is also proper to mention that the MS. left the Author’s hands eighteen months ago.

13, Waterloo Place. S.W.
January, 1886.

CONTENTS.

	PAGE
Introduction	[1]
List of Authors cited	[27]
[CHAPTER I.]—On some remarkable Animal Forms	[31]
[CHAPTER II.]—Extinction of Species	[42]
[CHAPTER III.]—Antiquity of Man	[78]
[CHAPTER IV.]—The Deluge not a Myth	[101]
[CHAPTER V.]—On the Translation of Myths between the Old and the New World	[137]
[CHAPTER VI.]—The Dragon	[159]
[CHAPTER VII.]—The Chinese Dragon	[212]
[CHAPTER VIII.]—The Japanese Dragon	[248]
[CHAPTER IX.]—The Sea-Serpent	[260]
[CHAPTER X.]—The Unicorn	[338]
[CHAPTER XI.]—The Chinese Phœnix	[366]
Appendices	[375]

MYTHICAL MONSTERS.