YANGTZE NOTES. — FROM CHINKIANG TO WUHU. 177 



Rocky point. — 17 miles from Nanking. Formerly a favourite anchorage for the 

 cruisers and gunboats of H. M.'s navy. There is an abundant supply of game, pheasants and 

 deer on the hills, but they require a lot of getting at, for the thick oak scrub is difficult 

 to beat properly. When this cover is sufficiently cleared off by about the middle of 

 December to be workable the pheasant thinks that it is high time to seek the better holding 

 where the reeds grow. 



10 miles S. of Rocky Point and within 6 miles of the Taipingfu (;^^Jf?) creek, a 

 rocky bluff stands out. A good place for shelter is a small creek about I mile N. of the bluff. 

 On 22nd December, 1908, I found the hills to the N.E. literally swarming with pheasants. 

 The natives say that pheasants are always very plentiful and that no one ever shoots in that 

 district but a goodly lot of woodcock are to be found in the copses round the bluff and near 

 the temple. At the same place a year later, 27th December, 1909, during a long day's tramp 

 not a single pheasant was to be found on the hills. It may be accounted for by the fact that 

 no rain had fallen for three weeks, and the hills being bare and dry, the birds had taken the 

 short flight to the N.E. end of Wade Island, where they would find both shelter and food. 



Islands. — The islands between Rocky Point and Taipingfu would probably reveal 

 something marvellous in numbers and how congregational pheasants they may be, if properly 

 worked when the reeds are practically cut about the middle of December. Reed cutting 

 begins earlier than it did some years ago, and very little of this cover is left after the first 

 week in January. 



Wade Island is now almost entirely cultivated. 



WILDFOWL. 



The Yangtze between Chinkiang and Wuhu teems with wildfowl right through the 

 season. A native at Taisinjer, the possessor of a weather beaten musket, informed me 

 that he had bagged quite a number of duck by firing a wooden ramrod right amongst them. 

 The ramrod though heavy was just capable of floating, and skimmed a great distance on the 

 surface of the water. A modern rifle firing a ramrod near the surface of the water should 

 give a fairly flat trajectory for 100 yards, and the skim will do the rest. This unorthodox 

 method of wildfowling is, at any rate, as sporting as firing a pint of lead into the brown of 

 a company of fowl from the murderous punt duck gun. 



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