We learn from incidental passages in the _Bamboo Books_[60] that the rhinoceros, which is now unknown in China, formerly extended throughout that country. We read of King Ch'aou, named Hĕa (B.C. 980), that "in his sixteenth year [of reign] the king attacked Ts'oo, and in crossing the river Han met with a large rhinoceros." And, again, of King E, named Sëĕ (B.C. 860), that "in his sixth year, when hunting in the forest of Shay, he captured a rhinoceros and carried it home." There is also mention made--though this is less conclusive--that in the time of King Yiu, named Yeu (B.C. 313), the King of Yueh sent Kung-sze Yu with a present of three hundred boats, five million arrows, together with rhinoceros' horns and elephants' teeth. Elephants are now unknown in China except in a domesticated state, but they probably disputed its thick forest and jungly plains with the Miaotsz, Lolos, and other tribes which held the country before its present occupants. This may be inferred from the incidental references to them in the _Shan Hai King_, a work reputed to be of great antiquity, of which more mention will be made hereafter, and from evidence contained in other ancient Chinese works which has been summarized by Mr. Kingsmill[61] as follows:-- "The rhinoceros and elephant certainly lived in Honan B.C. 600. The _Tso-chuen_, commenting on the C‘hun T‘siu of the second year of the Duke Siuen (B.C. 605), describes the former as being in sufficient abundance to supply skins for armour. The want, according to the popular saying, was not of rhinoceroses to supply skins, but of courage to animate the wearers. From the same authority (Duke Hi XIII., B.C. 636) we learn that while T‘soo (Hukwang) produced ivory and rhinoceros' skins in abundance, Tsin, lying north of the Yellow River, on the most elevated part of the Loess, was dependent on the other for its supplies of those commodities. The _Tribute of Yu_ tells the same tale. Yang-chow and King (Kiangpeh and Hukwang), we are told, sent tribute of ivory and rhinoceros' hide, while Liang (Shensi) sent the skins of foxes and bears. Going back to mythical times, we find Mencius (III. ii. 9) telling how Chow Kung expelled from Lu (Shantung) the elephants and rhinoceroses, the tigers and leopards." Mr. Kingsmill even suggests that the species referred to were the mammoth and the Siberian rhinoceros (_R. tichorhinus_). M. Chabas[62] publishes an Egyptian inscription showing that the elephant existed in a feral state in the Euphrates Valley in the time of Thothmes III. (16th century B.C.). The inscription records a great hunting of elephants in the neighbourhood of Nineveh.