Centuries of study by Chinese scholars have allowed us to build up a fairly complete picture of the 4000-year birth cycle of the Chinese dragon. After 1000 years of gestation as a gemlike egg, the young dragon spends 500 years as a water snake, slowly developing the head of a carp, at which stage it is known as a kiao. Over the next millennium the dragon acquires scales, four limbs tipped with claws and an elongated, bearded face; it is now known as a lung, meaning 'deaf', for the dragon cannot yet hear anything. It takes another five centuries to grown horns, through which it can hear, and becomes a kioh-lung--the classical form of oriental dragon. The final stage of growth takes another millenium, during which the dragon sprouts a set of wings and becomes a fully mature ying-lung (of which there are several varieties).