"Li-chao, in the _Kwoh-shi-pu_, says: 'In the spring floods the fish leap into the Dragon's Gate, and the number of cast-off bones there is very numerous. These men seek for medicinal purposes. They are of the five colours. This Dragon's Gate is in Tsin (Shansi), where this work (_Kwoh-shi-pu_) is published. Are not, then, these so-called dragons' bones the bones of fish?' "Again, quoting from Sun Kwang-hien in the _Poh-mung Legends_: 'In the time of the five dynasties there was a contest between two dragons; when one was slain, a village hero, Kw'an, got both its horns. In the front of the horns was an object of a bluish colour, marked with confused lines, which no one knew anything about, as the dragon was completely dead.' "Tsung Shih says: 'All statements [concerning dragons' bones] disagree; they are merely speculations, for when a mountain cavern has disclosed to view a skeleton head, horns and all, who is to know whether they are _exuviæ_ or that the dragon has been killed? Those who say they are _exuviæ_, or that the dragon is dead, then have the form of the animal, but have never seen it alive. Now, how can one see the thing (as it really is) when it is dead? Some also say that it is a transformation, but how is it only in its appearance that it cannot be transformed?' "Ki, in the present work, says that they are really dead dragons' bones; for one to say that they are _exuviæ_ is a mere speculation. "Shi Chăn says: 'The present work considers that these are really dead dragons' bones, but To Shi thinks they are _exuviæ_. Su and Kan doubt both these statements. They submit that dragons are divine beings, and resemble the principle of immortality (never-in-themselves-dying principle); but there is the statement of the dragon fighting and getting killed; and further, in the _Tso-chw‘en_, in which it is stated that there was a certain rearer of dragons who pickled dragons for food [for the imperial table?].' "The _I-ki_ says: 'In the time of the Emperor Hwo, of the Han dynasty, during a heavy shower a dragon fell in the palace grounds, which the Emperor ordered to be made into soup and given to his Ministers.' "The _Poh-wuh-chi_ states that a certain Chang Hwa 'got dragon's flesh to dry, for it is said that when seasoning was applied the five colours appeared, &c. These facts prove that the dragon does die, an opinion which is considered correct by [the writers of] the present work.'" THE YUEN KIEN LEI HAN. This is an encyclopædia in four hundred and fifty books or volumes, completed in 1710. More than eighty pages are devoted to the dragon. These, with all similar publications in China, consist entirely of extracts from old works, many of which have perished, and of which fragments alone remain preserved as above.