Life and sport in China / Second Edition

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s, where keepers flourish and wax fat on contributions levied on the friends of mine host, where hand-raised game is driven into the jaws of death, and where the sportsman's friend and delight, his dog, is practically banished. No, I mean where one can look on the whole emp

ess numerous and less evenly distributed. Bustards, plover and many other migratory birds appear only in wint

ave good dogs and know the country, or go with someone who does, otherwise the most ardent spirit would soon be cooled to freezing point and disgust instead of delight would be the result of his

and away from foreign influence but r

ly which there are now a number of native gunners who, as a means of livelihood, scour the country with foreign breech-loaders in search of pheasants, wildfowl, etc., so that, being capital shots,

o possess firearms, though this law has not been rigidly enforced, and partly due to the primi

rivet. The hammers have slits in them as if to hold flints, but which really are intended for the slow-match. Sometimes these men had good bags of snipe, but only once have I seen such a gun fired, which was at a pigeon sitting about fifteen yards high in a tree. The gunner blew his slow-match into a glow and pressed it into the slit in the hammer, placed the pistol handle to his hip and

either flints or percussion caps, are also in occasio

hile the powder is very poor, burning slowly with much smoke and smell. No cut wads are used, but pieces of paper, ramm

ing as it passes overhead, flies into it and is at once secured. Snares of wire and string, ingenious traps of bamboo which impale the birds on wo

me in the devastated fields around Nanking that natives speared them in the grass; while the official said that in the almost deserted Black Dragon river district these birds were so little afraid of man that on his approach they would conceal onl

ck every requisite, and which is in reality your floating shooting-box for the time being. You have only to choose your field of operations, s

an end and you make yourself comfortable, have afternoon tea, read, smoke, dine, chat with your friend over the fire, and after spending the evening as comfortably as if in your own house, retire to rest, awaking next morning to find yourself on the scene of action and very possibly to hear the pheasants crow while still in be

at on th

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al with the white-ringed English birds, only, if any

of a village destroyed forty years ago, the inhabitants of which were either extirpated, dragged off in the rebel army or fled to other parts of the country. These abandoned fields, interspersed with ridges of low hills clad with young pines, are gener

r both for pheasants, which feed on the acorns, as well as deer. This scrub, although very trying to wal

te winter, when the reeds have been mostly cut for fuel, that it is possible to get them out. About the end of December the reeds still uncut, stand in square, even patches, the sides of which tower up like the walls of a house. The best way is to select clumps of medium size, place a gun on either side to keep well in advance, and turn two or three dogs, spaniels for choice, in at on

ul day, when twenty-five head, including seven or eight brace of pheasants, would represent a fair average per gun. With the exception of spring snipe, enormous totals like those we glo

r miles at a stretch, and will hardly rise to avoid the river-steamers as they pass, although extremely shy of approaching small boats, while every little pond or creek affords the probability of a shot. Wildfowl-shooting, however, is not largely gone in for, why,

it only for an instant, when, topping the bamboos, they alight again on the opposite side. I have spent nearly an hour in killing a brace which, although I saw perhaps twenty ti

that some children had been carried off by "dog-headed tigers," whic

lls, seeking for traces of the man-eaters, being joined towards noon by the British Consul. Carrying my twelve-bore fowling-piece loaded with a bullet in the right barrel and a charge of big shot in the left, th

o behold a jet of water, broken ice and fish shoot up two or three feet high from a hole made by the shot. The dog-coolie rushed down and filled his cap with our unexpected prey, which we s

e "dog-headed tigers" we walked

from confinement on board, ran to the top of a high dyke, or wall for preventing floods, some hundred yards distant, and put up hundreds of wild geese which had been preening themselves in the sun on the other side, where they had also found shelter from the cutting wind. The mig

, when firing into the brown I knocked them all down except one, and that I accounted for with the other barrel. Falling into the pond, some that were winged gave a good deal

easant after pheasant, but as they generally got up on the opposite side, w

ner of the island, so that presently I made my way there and crouched down amongst the rushes behind a dyke, having a small lagoon immediately at my back. Mallard, widgeon and many other

d, as I have subsequently learnt although then mistaking them for large divers, three goosanders. On my way back to the house-boat I surprised and shot a goose which wa

returning warmth, slowly migrate to Siberia for nesting. They pass through Central China during May, arriving almost simultaneously, when for about t

ong boots, cold water, mud and marshes. Spring snip

ower, all Nature at her best. You take your gun with a plentiful supply of cartridges, a coolie to carry bottled beer and sandwiches and to pick up the birds, and sally forth into th

o fat and heavy that they often rip quite open merely from the force of falling to the ground. In this way you go on, firing until the gun becomes so hot that every now an

of the country from which they come, and strangely enough they appear to be less numerous and do not arrive so simultaneously as the spring birds, though r

ack snipe, though the paint

n response to the invitation of an old friend, I joined him and two other guests aboard his house-boat and sailed down the Yangtse to this wel

or four miles further down river, where, after shooti

, however, walked many yards along the river bank before it became apparent that there were any number of birds, and I already regretted having so few cartridges with me. After crossing the creek in a crazy sampan the party separated, each taking his own line of country. Presently a tremendous fusillade commence

which were all on the ground at one time. My gun became so hot that it was necessary to open it to let the barrels cool, while the cartridges were all gone in less than an hour, so that carrying my now useless weapon and b

f us landed with our guns and walked hurriedly across country towards a point about three miles up river, there to rejoin the party on the boat. Of course we kept them waiting, the sport was so good, but satisfaction at the total bag of some two hundred snipe did much to smooth matte

as the "four unlikes," since they possessed certain attributes of, I believe, the horse, the deer, the ox and the sheep, without belonging definitely to either family

with marshland through which a small stream flows, and there I have bagged a

k on Saturday morning, as soon as work was over at one I would mount my pony, held in readiness by t

by half-past two, which would allow of about

managed to get within range, killing a brace. They are beautiful, gamey-looking birds, of a very light brown or sand colour,

rass. One evening, when thus returning, two medium-sized eagles swooped at the dog and commenced to regularly hunt him, much to his consternation. To dismount and get my gun out of its case again was

ir wings and claws mounted as fans, whic

wnwards from the upper jaw, with which he tears up the ground in search of roots, and it is to these peculiarities that the name of "hog-deer" is due. They mostly lie in the grass on forms, like

ten seen, although they do exist, as I have shot one myself near Ngankin. Down south the bamboo partridge abounds in places, but it is a v

, but are considerably larger, while the plumage, although practically identical in colour, is far more brilliant. A curious feature about them is that they are never flushed in coveys and very rarely in pairs, but are almos

qualities, for after being caught and having had their wings clipped they are disposed of to various purchasers, who take them to minia

sh rabbit. They usually lie in the open, though often found in graves and in holes in th

ey are very shy, always settle on wide plains, and are extremely difficult

and not having been in one of these favoured spots I have had no opportunity to try my hand at this exciting sport, but a friend of mine, who has earned considerable

unding country bring word into the settlement that a tiger has been seen, preparations fo

s and rocks, approached by long tunnels or holes just large enough to ad

end a lighted torch. Next followed three more shikarries, holding long spears, which they similarly thrust in advance, so that the attacking force consisted of a torch, three spears, the Englishman with his rifle and four

beyond the torch, when, carefully aimed between them, a hollow, expre

ged I have never heard, but personally I should be somewhat c

ns, setting out from the rendezvous armed to the teeth, in company with another hunter, but before very long cam

showed true Am

with the real thing I had always imagined that the barbed grass seeds, which a

h, which are indigenous to that locality, but was warned that it would be necessary to take long leggings as a protection against spear-grass. Not having any with me, and be

g grass, but suddenly became conscious of a smarting in the legs as though walking through nettles, and noticed that the grass was adhering to my stockings. However, I pushed on, my dog being hot on the scent, but presently we both came to a standstill-

tically sewn to my skin by the spear-grass, the tiny barbed points of which had passed in hundreds through the wool and worked like fish-hooks into my calves. Without penetrating deep enough to more than sli

ges from the tree for one cash each

whereas for other sizes they have frequently to be imported from home, although I must admit that a twent

rs and spaniels are the most suitable dogs to keep, for they appear

y prevalent canine disease, but their most deadly enemy, and one existing in no other country that I know of, is worms in the heart. How the germs get into the blood no doctor has yet been able to say, but thin, white worms resembling vermicelli cluster round the heart, living on

n our own breeds, while their powers of scent are much inferior. I have heard that in the island of Hainan

n his house-boat a few miles below Chinkiang, when we could s

aking only a bottle of whisky, a few things for tiffin and a pl

ssible, and when the geese rose at a distance of about sixty yards, knocked down a couple with two charges of S.S.G. A minute later another came flying overhead calling to its wound

iserable night in the tiny cabin of the dirty little sampan, I started with gun and dog at about eight o'clock-fully expecting that the house-boat would turn up during my absence-and

th, were flying, whistling and whirring about in every direction, and rising from the water quite close to the boat. My dog "Snipe" and I crept into the cabin out of the cutting wind, which was d

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with the sadness peculiar to wanderers on such occasions, and then gave myself up to nicotine and reflec