Further, it is a fact which seems to have been strangely overlooked, that these tree-ferns, with the creeping root-stocks, do not grow in Tartary. The particular species of _Dicksonia_ from which the doll-“lambs” were made is a native of Southern China, Assam, and the Malayan peninsula and islands.[26] And we have conclusive evidence, in addition to the report made by Mr. Buckley to the Royal Society (p. 27), that these playthings themselves were of Chinese workmanship. [26] ‘_Synopsis Filicum_,’ by Sir W. J. Hooker and J. G. Baker, F.L.S. 1863. Art. “Dicksonia barometz.” Juan de Loureiro, an accomplished Portuguese botanist and Fellow of the Royal Society of Lisbon, who lived and laboured as a Catholic missionary for more than thirty years in Cochin China, and, afterwards, for three years in China, thus writes[27]:-- [27] _Flora Cochinchinensis_, tom. i. p. 675. Lisbon. 1790. “The _Polypodium borametz_ grows in hilly woods in China and Cochin China. Many authors have written of the Scythian Lamb, or Borametz--most of them fabulously. Ours is not a fruit, but a root, which is easily shaped by the help of a little art into the form of _a small rufous dog, by which name, and not by that of a ‘lamb,’ it is called by the Chinese_.” Loureiro describes the cutting off the stalks to form the legs, the fixing on of smaller ones as ears, and other particulars of the rude manufacture of these fern-root dogs, as witnessed by himself. The common name of these toys in China--“Cau-tich,” and in Cochin China, “Kew-tsie,” both represent a “tan-coloured dog.” It must also be borne in mind that the lamb-plant was represented as springing from a seed like that of a melon, but rounder, and that the natives of the country where it grew planted these seeds. It was therefore a cultivated plant. The lamb, it was also stated, was contained within the fruit or seed-capsule of the plant; and when this fruit, or seed-pod, was ripe it burst open, and the little lamb within it was disclosed. The wool of this lamb was described by various writers as being “very white,” “as white as snow,” whereas these root-stocks of ferns bear no resemblance to a lamb in their natural condition; and when they have been deftly trimmed into shape the hairs or scales upon them are tawny orange, matching better with the “tan” markings of a dog, which they were intended to represent, than with the soft, white fleece of a young lamb. Therefore, even if I had no better explanation to offer, I should be led to the conclusion that the identification of these _tawny_ toy-_dogs_, made in _China_ from the _root_ of a _wild_ fern, the spores of which are _as small as dust_, with the “Vegetable _Lambs_” of _Scythia_, whose _white_ fleeces were found within the ripe and opening _fruit_ of a _cultivated_ plant, raised from _a large seed_, was obviously erroneous, and that the origin of the rumour must be sought for elsewhere.