82 SHOOTING IN CHINA 



(Turtur rupicula) which frequents the pine 

 woods on the hill sides, and the modest dove 

 without which no native village is complete 

 are the herons, the egrets and the bitterns. 

 And this catalogue fails to complete the 

 tale of feathered beauties indiscriminately, 

 inexcusably and inanely fired at. 



China is singularly poor in the variety 

 of its ground game. Apart from the larger 

 ferals which, with the exception of the 

 tigers in the Amoy district, seldom if ever 

 fall to the gun of the average sportsman. 

 China game resolves itself literally and 

 simply into the two classes of deer and 

 hares. 



Of the antlered deer there are but two 

 kinds, and so rarely are they met with, 

 living as they do so high up amongst the 

 thickly wooded mountain fastnesses, and 

 consequently far beyond the range of any 

 places accessible by houseboat, that it would 

 be a real red-letter day for that sportsman 

 who had the luck to account for even a 

 pair of horns. 



The large deer of the Yangtze Valley, 

 named after a popular commissioner of 

 customs (Cervus Kopschi), is said to be 



