302 EXTINCT AND 'VANISHING MAMMALS 



Korea. "In the Korea great value is apparently placed upon the 

 skins, which are reserved for the chiefs" (Elliot, 1883, text to pi. 3). 

 Ford Barclay (1915, pp. 228-231) gives the following account: 



Tiger are probably more numerous in the north than in the southern part 

 of Korea .... 



In the neighbourhood of the foreign mining concessions, near the Yalu, 

 dynamite is or was used with some success by native hunters, a small, specially 

 constructed bomb being somehow concealed in the bait. Lately, however. 

 . . . the Japanese police have forbidden the supply of dynamite for this 

 purpose. Drop traps, weighted with stones and huge logs, are very common, 

 and many tigers are accounted for in this way every year. 



[In Manchuria] the natives lay down poison wholesale. This is forbidden 

 now in Korea .... 



My own most successful hunts have been in the island of Chindo, . . . 

 situated at the south-west corner of Korea. . . . Early this year (1914) the 

 body of a tiger was washed up on the west coast of Japan south of Matsue, 

 at least 120 miles from the nearest mainland, from whence alone it could have 

 come; yet, as reported in the press, its condition was such that the skin was 

 removed for dressing and parts of the flesh sold for consumption 1 . . . 



This demand for tiger flesh on the part of the Japanese is a curious survival 

 of barbaric superstition in such a highly civilized race. One of their chief 

 officials sent me an urgent request for a shoulder on hearing of a successful 

 hunt. This joint for some reason is supposed to possess greater medicinal 

 virtue than any other, and the shoulder blade ground to powder is a certain 

 cure in the most advanced stages of insanity! 



When a tiger is killed [in Korea] notice is at once sent to the elders of all 

 villages within a radius of five miles, [and on their arrival a] wrangle ensues 

 as to who are to be the privileged half-dozen to partake of a cupful of the 

 ambrosial liquid left in the abdominal cavity, after the removal of the 

 intestines. . . . 



Among both Chinese and Koreans, tiger's blood is believed to have an 

 extraordinarily rejuvenating effect, greater even than the highly prized wapiti 

 or sika horn .... 



Of the twenty odd skins I have seen in South Korea all have been much 

 darker in colour than the half-dozen brought for my inspection in East 

 Siberia .... 



In the happy days before the Japanese occupation and the consequent 

 confiscation of fire-arms, when the depredations of a tiger became too pro- 

 nounced, the active male inhabitants of the villages in the neighbourhood, 

 perhaps half a dozen, armed with matchlocks, and as many more with heavy 

 spears, would arrange for a day or two's driving in the adjacent hills. Occa- 

 sionally these hunts were successful. 



"In North Corea tigers are said to be still fairly numerous, and 

 every year some are killed there by sportsmen" (Sowerby, 1923, 

 p. 31). 



In 1922 Kermit Roosevelt (in Roosevelt, Roosevelt, Derby, and 

 Roosevelt, 1927, pp. 41-84) undertook an extensive but unsuccessful 

 Tiger hunt with beaters in various localities of northern Korea. Some 

 old tracks were found, but apparently the species is by no means 

 common there. 



Manchuria. Sowerby 's records (1923, p. 30, pi. 2) from the 



