200 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



Later in the winter, when the river has dropped below the 20 foot watermark and the 

 reeds are partly cut, Farmer's Bend provides a change of country. The distance, nearly 

 30 miles up river, makes the journey almost too long for one day's shoot. There is 

 another reed country not so good, perhaps, but nearer to Hankow by about seven miles, 

 on the left bank. 



The Peking Railway has opened up some new country, badly needed by the not too 

 fortunate Hankowites. At Liulin, 130 miles up the line, reached in 6 hours, there is fair 

 shooting, but one has to do without the comfortable houseboat and must be content to sleep 

 in temples or farmhouses. 8 brace of pheasants by two guns in one day and 12 brace by 

 one gun in three days are bags that come to my mind. The shooting in this country — the 

 Honan side of the Hills dividing Hupeh and Honan— is irritating in a way, as the birds are 

 curiously patchy. One may come on quite numbers, which possibly may rise by tens, and 

 then tramp for hours over exactly similar ground without seeing a feather. 



Excursions even further afield into Shansi, near the Peking Syndicate mines, have 

 been rewarded by good sport, and a party of fair shots with dogs should by all accounts do 

 well if the ten days' time necessary for the trip can be afforded. 



Badly off though Hankow is for pheasants, spring snipe shooting affords some 

 compensation, although personally I think the uninteresting nature of the ground in which 

 the birds are found, the relaxing temperature in the spring and the monotony of simple 

 shots at semi-torpid snipes make a bag of 50 couples by no means the equivalent of a 

 couple of brace of pheasants, or 10 couples of winter snipes. But more limited as is our 

 snipe ground now-a-days still good shooting is to be had. One can no longer make a big 

 bag near the French Consulate, now in the centre of the Settlement, nor around the walls of 

 Hankow, while further out, the railway depot, oil installations and factories occupy the 

 ground that used to be the haunts of the pintail. Still the snipe is a persistent bird- 

 Industrial ventures are even invading the Seven Mile Creek district, but the ground is 

 fortunately too extensive for any harm to be done by the invasion. The snipe supply varies, 

 of course, according to the weather and condition of the ground. The last really good 

 season on record was 1905 when two guns bagged 81 couple in a short day's shoot. Last 

 spring one gun got 28 couple in a morning with the left barrel, the right lock getting out of 

 order at the outset of the shoot. 



I do not remember ever seeing a larger number of winter snipes than in December 

 1907, in the country opposite Yochow (-£& #| J^). The birds were getting up in hundreds at a 

 time but were so wild that but a modest bag resulted. They were in the short grass round the 

 small lagoons, and were rising during the day a hundred yards away. I know of no regular 

 winter snipe ground near to Hankow, and owing to the height of the river at the time of the 

 autumn migration, when low lying country is under water, good bags of snipes then are rare. 



One unfortunately cannot take any hopeful view of the future of shooting round 

 Hankow, poor though it is. The establishment of a refrigerating plant, dealing on a grand 

 scale with game amongst other articles of food, will almost certainly result in the further 

 depletion of our scanty game supply. At the same time the economic question comes in. 

 Short supplies mean high prices, and there is a price at which it will not pay to export game. 

 "A consummation devoutly to be wished." 



