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

 Unlike most blood sports such as bullfighting and cockfighting, cricket fighting rarely causes injuries to the animals.  It is a popular pastime in China and dates back more than 1,000 years to the Tang Dynasty.  However, the sport has been losing its popularity in China. Cricket fighting is a blood sport involving the fighting of male crickets. <SEP> Ecology is a new science and considered as an important branch of biological science, having only become prominent during the second half of the 20th century.  Ecological thought is derivative of established currents in philosophy, particularly from ethics and politics.  Its history stems all the way back to the 4th century.  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.  Theophrastus described interrelationships between animals and their environment as early as the 4th century BC.  Ecology developed substantially in the 18th and 19th century.  It began with Carl Linnaeus and his work with the economy of nature.  Soon after came Alexander von Humboldt and his work with botanical geography.  Alfred Russel Wallace and Karl Möbius then contributed with the notion of biocoenosis.  Eugenius Warming’s work with ecological plant geography led to the founding of ecology as a discipline.  Charles Darwin’s work also contributed to the science of ecology, and Darwin is often attributed with progressing the discipline more than anyone else in its young history.  Ecological thought expanded even more in the early 20th century.  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.  Ecology influenced the social sciences and humanities.  Human ecology began in the early 20th century and it recognized humans as an ecological factor.  Later James Lovelock advanced views on earth as a macro-organism with the Gaia hypothesis.  Conservation stemmed from the science of ecology.  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.  Later in the 20th century world governments collaborated on man’s effects on the biosphere and Earth’s environment. <SEP> 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.  Historical mention of Ji dates to the founding of the Zhou Dynasty in about 1045 BC.  Archaeological finds in southwestern Beijing where Ji was believed to be located date to the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 BC).  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.  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.  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.  Youzhou was one of the Sixteen Prefectures ceded to the Khitans during the Five Dynasties.  The city then became the southern capital of the Liao Dynasty and then main capital of the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234).  In the 13th Century, Kublai Khan built a new capital city for the Yuan Dynasty adjacent to Ji to the north.  The old city of Ji became a suburb to Dadu.  In the Ming Dynasty, the old and new cities were merged by Beijing's Ming-era city wall. <SEP> Keeping crickets as pets emerged in China in early antiquity.  Initially, crickets were kept for their "songs" (stridulation).  In the early 12th century the Chinese people began holding cricket fights.  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.  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.