Question: What "sport" involving animals dates all the way back to the Tang Dynasty and continued to the beginning of the 19th century?

<P0-S0>  Ecological thought is derivative of established currents in philosophy, particularly from ethics and politics. <P0-S1>  Important figures and movements include Shelford and the ESA, National Environmental Policy act, George Perkins Marsh, Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen A. Forbes, and post-Dust Bowl conservation. <P0-S2>  Major contributions included: Eduard Suess’ and Vladimir Vernadsky’s work with the biosphere, Arthur Tansley’s ecosystem, Charles Elton's "Animal Ecology", and Henry Cowles ecological succession. <P0-S3>  Later James Lovelock advanced views on earth as a macro-organism with the Gaia hypothesis. <P0-S4>  Conservation stemmed from the science of ecology. <P0-S5>  Human ecology began in the early 20th century and it recognized humans as an ecological factor. <P0-S6>  It began with Carl Linnaeus and his work with the economy of nature. <P0-S7>  Eugenius Warming’s work with ecological plant geography led to the founding of ecology as a discipline. <P0-S8>  Theophrastus described interrelationships between animals and their environment as early as the 4th century BC. <P0-S9>  Later in the 20th century world governments collaborated on man’s effects on the biosphere and Earth’s environment. <P0-S10>  Ecology developed substantially in the 18th and 19th century. <P0-S11>  One of the first ecologists whose writings survive may have been Aristotle or perhaps his student, Theophrastus, both of whom had interest in many species of animals and plants. <P0-S12>  Ecological thought expanded even more in the early 20th century. <P0-S13>  Its history stems all the way back to the 4th century. <P0-S14>  Alfred Russel Wallace and Karl Möbius then contributed with the notion of biocoenosis. <SEP> <P1-S0>  Unlike most blood sports such as bullfighting and cockfighting, cricket fighting rarely causes injuries to the animals. <P1-S1> Cricket fighting is a blood sport involving the fighting of male crickets. <P1-S2>  It is a popular pastime in China and dates back more than 1,000 years to the Tang Dynasty. <P1-S3>  However, the sport has been losing its popularity in China. <SEP> <P2-S0> Keeping crickets as pets emerged in China in early antiquity. <P2-S1>  Initially, crickets were kept for their "songs" (stridulation). <P2-S2>  Throughout the Imperial era the Chinese also kept pet cicadas and grasshoppers, but crickets were the favorites in the Forbidden City and with the commoners alike. <P2-S3>  The art of selecting and breeding the finest fighting crickets was perfected during the Qing dynasty and remained a monopoly of the imperial court until the beginning of the 19th century. <P2-S4>  In the early 12th century the Chinese people began holding cricket fights. <SEP> <P3-S0> Ji (蓟/薊 Jì), Jicheng or the City of Ji (蓟城/薊城 Jìchéng) was an ancient city in northern China, which has become the longest continuously inhabited section of modern Beijing. <P3-S1>  Historical mention of Ji dates to the founding of the Zhou Dynasty in about 1045 BC. <P3-S2>  Archaeological finds in southwestern Beijing where Ji was believed to be located date to the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 BC). <P3-S3>  The City of Ji served as the capital of the ancient states of Ji and Yan until the unification of China by the Qin Dynasty in 221 BC. <P3-S4>  Thereafter, the city was a prefectural capital for Youzhou through the Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Western Jin Dynasty, Sixteen Kingdoms, Northern Dynasties, and Sui Dynasty. <P3-S5>  With the creation of a Jizhou (蓟州) during the Tang Dynasty in what is now Tianjin Municipality, the City of Ji took on the name Youzhou. <P3-S6>  Youzhou was one of the Sixteen Prefectures ceded to the Khitans during the Five Dynasties. <P3-S7>  The city then became the southern capital of the Liao Dynasty and then main capital of the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234). <P3-S8>  In the 13th Century, Kublai Khan built a new capital city for the Yuan Dynasty adjacent to Ji to the north. <P3-S9>  The old city of Ji became a suburb to Dadu. <P3-S10>  In the Ming Dynasty, the old and new cities were merged by Beijing's Ming-era city wall.