158 



MISCELLANEOUS BIRDS. 



The few times I have had a chance of shooting these birds, have 

 been during journeys in North Shansi and Mongolia, when an occasional 

 flock has passed by on whistling wings. I am told that a good way to 

 hunt them is for three or four sportsmen to station themselves at wide 

 intervals round the spot where a flock has been found feeding. The 

 birds keep on circling round the spot, and so continually offer a mark 

 to one or other of the guns. One party travelling in North Shansi in 

 December 1912, reported great numbers of these birds, stating that they 

 sometimes shot as many as thirty and forty brace a day. The last really 

 extensive incursions of these birds into North China occurred in the 

 winter of 1907-08. On that occasion local sportsmen were able to get 

 good shooting simply by walking the birds up. The flesh is darker than 

 that of the game birds. 



AQUATIC BIRDS. 



Under this heading we have a number of species belonging to several 

 small orders, and the ornithologist must excuse my classing them 

 together. 





THE CORMORANT (Phalacrocorax carbo). 



The cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo) occurs wild in North China. 

 This bird is well known on account of its being used by the Chinese in 



