Most of these rounded forms have counterparts among the square and polygonal vases which are made in moulds or built up by the difficult process of joining together flat bats of clay. The square vases made by the latter method were a source of much trouble to the potters owing to the danger of imperfect jointing or of warping in the kiln. Fig. 1 of Plate 104 illustrates an effective type of the square vase with gracefully tapering body, the four sides of which are so often appropriately decorated with the flowers of the four seasons. Occasionally the angles are flattened, giving an irregular octagonal form. Another form selected for sumptuous decoration is the square vase with pendulous body and two dragon handles figured on Plate 97; and another is the arrow stand and square tube with deeply socketed stand and railed border (Plate 118). The pilgrim bottle supplies an effective model with a flattened circular body, small neck and foot, and loops on the periphery to carry a cord. These loops tended to disappear when the form had lost its first significance and was only regarded as a vase. The list of Imperial wares made in the reign of T’ung Chih includes vases for divining rods of square form with low round neck and base, ornamented with _pa kua_ designs in relief; vases with apricot medallions and tubular handles like Fig. 1 of Plate 123. Other familiar types are the bag-shaped vases with the mouth tied with silk, melon and gourd forms, and the vase shaped like a double fish erect on its tail or a single fish rising from waves. To quote a few of the types named in the _T’ao shuo_[488]:--“For holding flowers there are vases from two or three inches to five or six feet high, round like a _hu_, round and swelling below like a gallbladder (_tan_), round and with spreading mouth and contracted below like a _tsun_, with flat sides and full angles like a ku, upright like bamboo joints, square like a corn measure (_tou_), with contracted mouth and flattened sides, with square and round flutings, and cut in halves with flat backs for hanging on walls.”