Though we do not pretend to attach much weight to the illustrations in Hsiang's Album, the descriptions in the accompanying text cannot be ignored. They include ten specimens of Kuan yao,[125] five of which are explained as _fên ch´ing_ (pale blue or green). Of the rest one is "pale _ch´ing_ clear and lustrous like a sapphire blue jewel,"[126] evidently with a decidedly blue tinge; another is "kingfisher, blue as the clear blue sky,"[127] recalling the Ch´ai "blue of the sky after rain "; another is "sky blue" (_t´ien ch´ing_); another "onion green" (_ch´ing ts´ung_), the colour of onion sprouts; and another is "egg green" (_luan ch´ing_), which recalls and perhaps explains the _luan pai_ (egg white) of the Ju yao. [Illustration: PLATE 17 Two examples of Sung wares of the Chün or Kuan factories. Fig. 1.--Bowl with lavender glaze, lightly crackled. _O. Raphael Collection._ Height 4½ inches. Fig. 2.--Vase with smooth lavender grey glaze suffused with purple. _Eumorfopoulos Collection._ Height 3¾ inches. Fig. 1 Fig. 2 ] Among the various Sung and Yüan wares with more or less opalescent glazes which have reached Europe in recent years, it is possible to differentiate a considerable group whose characteristics seem to point to the Kuan yao. Their body is usually of fine grain, whitish colour and porcellanous texture, but assuming a rusty brownish tint in the exposed parts. It is, in fact, very much finer than the Yüan wares, usually so called, and all but the choicest wares of Chün type (see ch. ix.). The glaze, too, though generally opalescent, shows marked differences from that of the Chün and Yüan pieces. It is smooth and even instead of being lumpy and irregular, and it ends close up to the foot rim in a comparatively regular line instead of ending short of the base in a thick roll or in heavy drops. And the base instead of being quite bare or covered with a brown glaze, has a patch of the surface glaze underneath. The colours of this glaze show wide variations from a deep brownish green, which suggest the _ta lü_, to pale dove grey (_fên ch´ing_) and pale lavender blue tints, which approximate to the Chinese _t´ien ch´ing_ or sky blue, though perhaps not so closely as does the so-called "old turquoise." Some of these glazes, especially the pale lavender and dove greys, are broken by passages of red or crimson, which in turn shade off into green and brown tints. Although the expression _tai fên hung_ in the _Ko ku yao lun_[128] has already been rendered in its most natural sense, "with a tinge of red," we should perhaps mention a possible alternative which might make it refer to these very passages of red colour; and the fact that they sometimes assume fantastic shapes will explain why the Chinese saw in them "butterflies, birds, fish, unicorns, and leopards."[129] On the other hand, it is clear that these passages of red are not always accidental, for they sometimes take symmetrical forms, and it is quite possible