It would be useless to attempt to exhaust all the varieties of wheel-made forms. Many of them are due to slight alterations of line according to the caprice of the thrower. It will be enough to enumerate the principal types and to note a few of the more significant changes which came in at ascertained periods. By comparing the illustrations in different parts of this book, and better still, by comparing the specimens in some well classified collection, the reader will soon learn to notice the periodical changes of shape. To take the familiar bottle-shaped vases as an instance, there is probably no shape on which more numerous changes have been rung, nor one which is more susceptible to the individual touch; and yet the trained eye will generally distinguish the K’ang Hsi bottle from the later forms, though the distinction is often more subtle than that which separates the typical K’ang Hsi form (Plate 123, Fig. 2) from that with depressed body and straight wide neck (Plate 128, Fig. 3), which is characteristic of the Ch’ien Lung period. The K’ang Hsi bottles vary in themselves in length and slenderness of neck, and in the form of the body, which may be globular, ovoid, barrel shaped or pear shaped. Again they are often of double or even triple gourd shape, or plain with a bulbous swelling on the upper part of the neck or actually at the mouth. The last variety are called “garlic-shaped” bottles by the Chinese. The normal types are used to hold a single spray or a flowering branch, but there are others with slender necks tapering to a point which are designed for sprinkling perfumes and are generally known as sprinklers. Of flower vases there are numerous varieties: egg-shaped vases; baluster-shaped vases with spreading mouth; high-shouldered vases with small mouth, the _mei p’ing_ of the Ming period; beakers (_ku_) with slender body, swelling belt in the middle and flaring mouth; the so-called _yen yen_ vase with ovoid body and high neck with trumpet mouth,[486] which is used for some of the choicest K’ang Hsi decorations (Plate 101); the _Kuan yin_[487] vase of ovoid form with short neck and spreading mouth; the cylindrical vase with short straight neck and spreading mouth (Plate 103), called by the French _rouleau_ and by the Chinese “paper-beater” (_chih ch’ui p’ing_), whence our name “club-shaped.” A smaller form of the same is known to the Chinese as _yu ch’ui p’ing_ (oil-beater vase). There is besides the wide oval jar or _potiche_ with dome-shaped cover (_tsun_), and the more slender form known as _t’an_, which often has a lion or _ch’i-lin_ on the cover serving as a knob; the tall cylinder to hold arrows and the low cylinder for brushes, and numerous pots and jars for various uses.