DOGS OF CHINA AND JAPAN 



the hare in such difficult ground the gun would be used. 

 In open country use of the gun is unnecessary. The gun 

 being a match or flint-lock it was almost impossible to shoot 

 birds on the wing. A hawk commonly used in the catching 

 of hares in China is the huang ying (lit. yellow eagle Astur 

 palumbarius, the goshawk), which fixes its talons in the 

 sides of the hare and is dragged with spread wings until 

 the quarry is exhausted. The chi-ying (lit. bird-eagle) is 

 the male of the huang-ying and weighs about 2\ Ibs. Being 

 small of body it is suited only to the catching of pheasants. 



The Han bas-relief mentioned above was found in the 

 village of Chiao Ch'eng Chi, west of Chia Hsiang in Western 

 Shantung. The explanation of the scene depicted, made by 

 the editors of the " Kin Shih So," the Chinese work,* from 

 which the illustration is derived, reads : " On the lower panel 

 one man leads a dog, two men carry nets for the quail. A 

 pheasant and a hare are running at full speed, for it repre- 

 sents a hunt." This, however, must not be taken more 

 seriously than the remarks of other Chinese literary commen- 

 tators written at late periods with a view to elucidation of 

 technical subjects of which they had no special knowledge. 



Use of the fowling-piece and the art of shooting flying only 

 came into being in England about the year 1725 .f In Europe 

 hawking had been superseded by the netting of partridges 

 with the spaniel trained to set at the birds and to cause them 

 to allow the net to be drawn up to and over them. Hawking, 

 the netting of quails, francolins, or partridges, and pheasants, 

 as well as the use of the muzzle-loader and breech-loader 

 sporting-guns are all practised side by side in China by the 

 natives to-day. In South China the capture of birds is less 



* Vol. iv., section " Shih So." 



f Notes and Queries, 2nd series, v, p. 306 ; and Edinburgh Review, August 1825, 

 vol. xliii, p. 457. 



68 



