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    CHINESE MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES


    [Illustration: LITTLE ORIENTALS]




    CHINESE MOTHER GOOSE RHYMES

    TRANSLATED AND ILLUSTRATED

    BY
    ISAAC TAYLOR HEADLAND
    OF PEKING UNIVERSITY.


    Fleming H. Revell Company
    NEW YORK   CHICAGO   TORONTO


    COPYRIGHT, 1900

    By Fleming H. Revell Company



PREFACE


There are probably more nursery rhymes in China than can be found in
England and America. We have in our possession more than six hundred,
collected, for the most part, in two out of the eighteen provinces,
and we have no reason to believe that we have succeeded in getting any
large proportion of what those two provinces contain.

In most of the rhymes there are features common to those of our own
"Mother Goose," among which are those referring (1) to insects, (2)
animals, (3) birds, (4) persons, (5) children, (6) food, (7) parts of
the body, (8) actions, such as patting, grabbing, tickling, etc., (9)
professions, trades and business.

We have tried to reproduce the meaning of the original as nearly as
possible; this has not always been an easy task. Let it be understood
that these rhymes make no pretentions to literary merit, nor has the
translator made any attempt at regularity in the meter, because
neither the original nor our own "Mother Goose" is regular. Our desire
has been to make a translation which is fairly true to the original,
and which will please English-speaking