The “Shi Ki,” in the book Fung Shen, says that during the worship at the solstices at Yung, there was captured a one-horned beast like a Piao, and that the local authorities assert that as His Majesty was making reverential invocations on the country altar to the Supreme Being, he was recompensed for the sacrifice by a beast which was a unicorn.
Wu Chao’s preface to the Loh Yiu says: “The body is like that of a muntjack, and it has one horn”; while the Spring and Autumn (Annals) allude to this animal in speaking of the horned Kiun.
The inhabitants of Ch‘u say the Kiun is a Piao. Kwoh, in his preface, says that the capture made in the time of Wu, of the Han dynasty, was actually a Piao, as demonstrated by the Han books. The Chung Kiun narrative states that in Shang Yung was captured a white Lin bearing one horn, of which the tip was fleshy. At the present day nothing has been heard of a Piao with a fleshy tip, therefore these must be different beasts.
Kwoh also says that the Piao is identical with the Chang, and the Chang with the Kiun. This corresponds with what Wei Chao So had already stated, that the people of Ch‘u assert that the Kiun is a Piao, and that the Piao is certainly a kind of deer.
Its meat is eminently savoury.
Luh Ki says that of all four-footed creatures, the Piao is the most excellent.
Yeu Shi states in the Kiao Sz annals (“Sacrifices to Heaven and Earth”), that the Piao is a kind of deer. Its body exactly resembles that of the Chang.
Finally, the explanatory prefaces of many classical works, when commenting on the ’Rh Ya, say that the Piao is identical with the Chang and of a black colour; and they confirm Kwoh’s opinion, although the ’Rh Ya forgets to allude to the three characters denoting the black colour.
Fig. 83.—The Ki-Rin. (From a Japanese Drawing in a Temple at Kioto.)