YANGTZE NOTES— CHINKIANQ. 179 



Chinkiang itself lies at the foot of a range of hills which runs along the South bank 

 of the river and has its extreme eastern feeder opposite Langshan (^ \Ji\). South of the hills 

 the country consists of down land, much of which has been cultivated, with many pools of 

 water in the hollows. This kind of country extends as far as Tanyang ("Pi; |^), but in that 

 neighbourhood there is much wheat grown, a fact well known to the wild-geese which 

 swarm there in winter. The grass-land, too, is sufficient to fatten the cattle sent to the 

 Shanghai market. 



In the early part of the season these downs are the best shooting ground, for it is 

 there that the birds breed, but later on when the crops have been cut and the ground 

 between the terraces has had all the herbage scraped off it, the bulk of the pheasants move 

 either to the hills, the villages or the reed-beds. 



The reed-beds which line the banks of the Yangtze are a great protection to the game 

 from the kites and other birds of prey, though not from ground vermin such as foxes, wild- 

 cats and wolves. It is in the reed-beds that the greatest bags are made, but the birds are 

 certainly not so strong and not so well worth shooting as those on the lower slopes of the 

 hills where the bags made are much smaller. Early in the season the reed-beds are 

 impenetrable, but by the end of the year enough reeds have been cut to make shooting 

 practicable. The number of birds which will collect in a single patch is sometimes 

 astonishing. I once saw a houqiiet of certainly 50 birds get up simultaneously. 



There are two kinds of reed ground which birds favour : that near water, which is 

 occasionally flooded and which has no undergrowth, and that inland which has an 

 undergrowth 3 to 4 feet high. In the first birds will run as fast as the dogs, and unless the 

 guns are posted beforehand many birds will get away without a shot being fired at them. 

 In the other the pheasants lie almost until they are trodden upon, and sometimes it is 

 necessary to beat the patches a second time in order to flush the game. 



Beaters are certainly more useful than dogs in reeds, but it takes a strong man to 

 fight his way all day through reeds 18 feet high. The dew on them in the early morning is 

 often heavy enough to drench the men to the skin, and the reed stumps are sharp enough 

 to cut through the sole of the stoutest shooting boot, but if the men are well fed and clothed 

 they will in my experience stand the day's work better than dogs. Late in the year, where 

 there are reed-beds, there pheasants will be found, with very possibly a woodcock, but I 

 have found the latter more frequent by the banks of creeks. 



As to bags, I do not think that the same bags have ever been made here as can be 

 made even now in the country behind Wuhu, but it is not necessary to go very far to get 

 10 brace of birds when the ground has not been much shot over. About 18 brace is as good 

 a bag as I recollect and is more than I have seen shot. 



Snipes are not generally very plentiful, but in the year 1894 after the heavy rains in 

 August there was an unusual number, and one day M. Rocher, the Commissioner of Customs, 

 and I got back to our boat at 9 A.M. with exactly 100 birds, shot that morning. But as a 

 rule 10 couples of snipes in a day is a good bag. 



If I had the time, the country which I should shoot would be that near Maoshan and 

 the foot of the hills between Chinkiang and Nanking, but when the ground is dry there is 

 hardly any scent on the hills. For those who like to shoot deer there are always deer to be 



