consulted and at times quoted from the excellent volumes on Chinese
Superstitions by Père Henri Doré, comprised in the valuable series
_Variétés Sinologiques_, published by the Catholic Mission Press
at Shanghai. The native works contained in the Ssu K'u Ch'üan Shu,
one of the few public libraries in Peking, have proved useful for
purposes of reference. My heartiest thanks are due to my good friend
Mr Mu Hsüeh-hsün, a scholar of wide learning and generous disposition,
for having kindly allowed me to use his very large and useful library
of Chinese books. The late Dr G.E. Morrison also, until he sold it
to a Japanese baron, was good enough to let me consult his extensive
collection of foreign works relating to China whenever I wished, but
owing to the fact that so very little work has been done in Chinese
mythology by Western writers I found it better in dealing with this
subject to go direct to the original Chinese texts. I am indebted to
Professor H.A. Giles, and to his publishers, Messrs Kelly and Walsh,
Shanghai, for permission to reprint from _Strange Stories from a
Chinese Studio_ the fox legends given in Chapter XV.

This is, so far as I know, the only monograph on Chinese mythology
in any non-Chinese language. Nor do the native works include any
scientific analysis or philosophical treatment of their myths.

My aim, after summarizing the sociology of the Chinese as a
prerequisite to the understanding of their ideas and sentiments,
and dealing as fully as possible, consistently with limitations of
space (limitations which have necessitated the presentation of a
very large and intricate topic in a highly compressed form), with
the philosophy of the subject, has been to set forth in English dress
those myths which may be regarded as the accredited representatives
of Chinese mythology--those which live in the minds of the people and