When I saw this, I thought that the probable explanation is that solar eclipses occur much more rarely than lunar eclipses. The two respective Wikipedia articles tend to support this idea, but the text doesn't actually explicitly confirm that this is the case.niuc wrote:... In my variant, 'thi*1-kau2-cia8-ger8' (thiⁿ káu chiáh gə´h) 天狗食月is sometimes used, but I don't remember 天狗食日(though it would have been easily understood also). ...
(The relevant extracts, with my emphasis added):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse
... At least two, and up to five, solar eclipses occur each year; no more than two can be total eclipses. TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSES ARE NEVERTHELESS RARE AT ANY PARTICULAR LOCATION because totality exists only along a narrow path on the Earth's surface traced by the Moon's umbra. ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_eclipse
... Unlike a solar eclipse, which CAN ONLY BE VIEWED FROM A CERTAIN RELATIVELY SMALL AREA OF THE WORLD, a lunar eclipse MAY BE VIEWED FROM ANYWHERE ON THE NIGHT SIDE OF THE EARTH. A lunar eclipse LASTS FOR A FEW HOURS, whereas a total solar eclipse LASTS FOR ONLY A FEW MINUTES at any given place. ...
