Part of Zhao Zhiqian's "Different Fish Diagram"
In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Cao Cao once said, "If you have a son, you should be like Sun Zhongmou, if Liu Jingsheng is a son, the guinea pig ear." This is Cao Cao's admiration for Sun Quan's bravery, and at the same time he believes that Liu Biao's sons are all guinea pigs, that is, pig dogs.
Dolphin is the elegant name of the pig, in the eyes of the ancients, the dolphin is the pig in the sea, and there is not much difference between the pig on the land, but one is on the land and one is in the water. The Qing Dynasty painter Zhao Zhiqian's "Different Fish Map" called it a sea pig: "The natives call it a sea pig, the fish is headed, the small ones are hundreds of pounds, the meat is inedible, take it as oil to light the lamp, and the flies dare not come near." "Dolphins are really painted in the shape of pigs, the head of the fish is fat, big ears and long nose, which is the same as the domestic pig, and the lower body is a fish tail, this combination has become a sea monster, far from the real dolphin."
Dolphin: "You're the pig!" ”
Zhao Zhiqian's concept of dolphins is not an isolated case, in his time, people have limited knowledge of the sea, mostly false rumors, painters in the description, can only rely on rumors, so and created some strange species on paper, dolphins are one of the cases, witnessing the crampedness of early naturalism.
Similar to dolphins, there are dolphins' close relatives, finless porpoises, which are active in freshwater areas close to the coastline, especially in the lower Reaches of the Yangtze River, finless porpoises and dolphins are mammals, the main difference is that finless porpoises do not have dorsal fins, while dolphins have dorsal fins. But in the ancients, the porpoise and the dolphin were the same fate, and the depiction of the porpoise in the Ming Dynasty's "Three Talents Picture Society" was also made in the shape of a pig, and its body was blackened, and the fat body that appeared in the waves did not know how to deal with the wind and waves. In the late Qing Dynasty's "Dianshizhai Pictorial", the porpoise was also depicted as a monster: "There is a thing in the river, the body is huge, furry, and it is always haunted by the terrifying waves, and the name of the boat is the river pig", this monster appears at the bottom of the boat, knocks the boat over, has a long nose and big ears, and is hairy, and the characteristics of land animals are translated by people to the body of the water beast.
Finless porpoises, according to the "Dianshizhai Pictorial"
Dolphins are regarded as beasts, so there are all kinds of strange stories, there is a view that dolphins have hairs on their bodies, "can check the tide", when the tide rises, the whole body hair stands up, when the tide falls, the hairs of the whole body fall. During the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, a merchant claimed to have obtained a dolphin skin, although the dolphin's flesh was dead, but the effectiveness of the fur to test the tides was still there, and what was even more surprising was that when the merchant went to the northwest, the dolphin skin he carried with him still rose and fell according to the tidal time of the East China Sea, which showed that people at that time were quite able to recognize some of the specialties of animals. However, this rumor belongs to the side theory, and the dolphins do not have hair on them.
Porpoise Ming Edition "Three Talents Picture Society"
The lazy woman fish mentioned in the Southern Dynasty Ren Fang's "Shu Yi Ji" is said to be a dolphin: "There are lazy women fish in Huainan. Customary Cloud: Xi Yang's housewife, angry with her sister, drowned as a fish, and her fat paste can burn candles. If you take the drum and the piano, you will have light, and if you shine on the spinning, you will not regain your sight. "The lazy woman fish mentioned here is a lazy daughter-in-law, who was disliked by her mother-in-law, and later drowned and died, turning into a fish, with rich grease, which can be illuminated, but this ointment also adheres to the lazy woman's disposition, and all that shines in entertainment places is bright, if it is illuminated by weaving or reading, it is dull, and this irony can be described as profound. Dolphin grease can be refined into oil, but also can be lit, different occasions under the change of light and dark, is a strange talk.
Hai 㹠 Qing Dynasty Nie Huang 'Sea Mistake Map》
Qing Dynasty painter Nie Huang expressed his doubts about dolphins in the "Sea Mistake Map", the legendary dolphin is pig-shaped, Nie Huang found that dolphins are fish-shaped, he wrote: "The sea is like a pig, it is difficult to believe the book", he asked the seaside fishermen for advice, the fishermen told him that although the appearance is not like, only the internal organs are similar to pigs, "There are two pieces of cream in the abdomen, absolutely like pig dishes, its liver, intestines, heart, lungs, waist and stomach are all pig belly, all can be eaten, and the abdomen is beautiful", it is said that this is the conclusion reached by the fishermen of the East China Sea after eating it themselves, it seems that they have been on the basis of dissection, Vaguely aware of the difference between dolphins and other fish, this is a mammalian beast, not a fish. Nie Juan's empirical attitude is extremely rare, and although it still has inevitable limitations, he is close to the pattern of biologists. The understanding of dolphins has become clearer.