The _Kin King_, a small work devoted to ornithology, and professing to
date back to the Tsin dynasty [A.D. 265 to 317], opens its pages with a
description of the Fung Hwang, because, as it states, the Fung is the
principal of the three hundred and sixty different species of birds.
According to it, the Fung is like a swan in front and like a Lin behind;
it enumerates its resemblances pretty much as the commentator in the _'Rh
Ya_ gives them; but we now find a commencement of extraordinary
attributes. Thus the head is supposed to have impressed on it the Chinese
character expressing virtue, the poll that for uprightness, the back that
for humanity; the heart is supposed to contain that of sincerity, and the
wings to enfold in their clasp that of integrity; its foot imprints
integrity; its low notes are like a bell, its high notes are like a drum.
It is said that it will not peck living grass, and that it contains all
the five colours.[312]
When it flies crowds of birds follow. When it appears, the monarch is an
equitable ruler, and the kingdom has moral principles. It has a synonym,
"the felicitous _yen_." According to the _King Shun_ commentary upon the
_'Rh Ya_, it is about six feet in height. The young are called Yoh Shoh,
and it is said that the markings of the five colours only appear when it
is three years of age.[313]
There appears to have been another bird closely related to it, which is
called the Lwan Shui. This, when first hatched, resembles the young Fung,
but when of mature age it changes the five colours.
The _Shăng Li Teu Wei I_ says of this, that when the world is peaceful its
notes will be heard like the tolling of a bell, Pien Lwan [answering to
our "ding-dong"]. During the Chao dynasty it was customary to hang a bell
on the tops of vehicles, with a sound like that of the Lwan.[314] From
another passage we learn that it was supposed to have different names
according to a difference in colour. Thus, when the head and wings were
red it was called the red Fung; when blue, the Yu Siang; when white, the
Hwa Yih; when black, the Yin Chu; when yellow, the To Fu. Another
quotation is to the effect that, when the Fung soars and the Lwan flies
upwards, one hundred birds follow them. It is also stated that when either
the Lwan or the Fung dies, one hundred birds peck up the earth and bury
them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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