198 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



Some very good bags have been made on the margins and in the vicinity of the lakes 

 at the back of the city of Wuchang, but getting there necessitates a houseboat and being 

 away for a night. One very notable bag was that of a naval officer who killed 50 couples of 

 the long bills with a muzzle-loading gun during a Saturday to Monday trip. It was here, 

 too, that two guns bagged 80 quail in a couple of hours. Towards the end of their stay snipes 

 are comparatively easy shooting, as by that time they have become fat and lazy and fly 

 slowly. At this time they are more likely to be found amongst the crops than in the marshes, 

 and having to rise abruptly to get clear of the cover afford the gun a fairly easy shot. 



There is practically no pheasant shooting at Hankow, though a bird or two may 

 occasionally be picked up round Wuchang or beyond the foreign bungalow at Hanyang. 

 A visit is sometimes paid to Kinkow, 15 miles up the river, but the shooting area there is so 

 limited, confined as it is to a very small range of hills, that after two or three shooting 

 parties have paid it a visit it is commonly agreed that the place has been shot out. An 

 occasional deer is bagged there, and in some seasons quail are fairly plentiful. On the 

 opposite side of the river to Kinkow the sportsman may come across hares, and four-and-a- 

 half brace, I know, have been bagged in a day. Pheasants are seldom met with. Some 

 low hills called "The Bluffs" a few miles below Hankow, are occasionally visited, but it is 

 rarely that the gun commands, though he may deserve, success. 



--p-fiJK-^^^JBta.- 



