When the courtiers heard about the arrival of this magical beast so rarely encountered through the ages, they rushed to have a look. Shen Tu's description of a ch'ilin seems in some ways to tally with one written by Liu Hsiang (77 B.C. to 6 B.C.). There the chi'lin had "the body of a chun and the tail of an ox; one horn on a round head.
這樣的描寫，跟漢代劉向所形容「身牛尾，圓頂一角，… … 行步中規，折旋中矩，…… 幽閒則循循如也，動則有容儀」的麒麟長相，也很接近。