^6 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALlE^i^. 



the Yangtze offers in its serpentine course perfect shelter for its myriad hosts. Can one 

 picture fairer havens of rest than the placid waters of our local lakes, the Tai Hu, Si Tai 

 and E Ding, or of those further distant the Poyang, Tai Nan or Tungting, the wide 

 marshlands of Nadoo and Wuhu, and the numberless ponds and undisturbed waterways 

 in this province of creeks and canals which one may see in a short day's tramp, or 

 richer feeding grounds than the contiguous country affords? 



" The wild duck there 



Gloats on the fat'ning ooze, or steals the spawn 



Of teeming shoals her more delicious feast." 

 As has been said elsewhere " to see the wary fowl is one thing, to get at them is 

 another," but the reader of the two immediately following chapters will have the benefit 

 of expert instruction as to what to do and how to do it. 



— MJ^'f^fe^^^M— 



