386 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



get a good thrashing for their pains, many of the merchants 

 being fond of shooting, and repudiating such an unsports- 

 manlike proceeding. Not so with the masters of ships in the 

 harbour, who purchase them at a very cheap rate, and dis- 

 tinguish no difference between roast pheasant in the month 

 of June, and the same dish in October. 



The chief feathered delicacy that I observed hawked about 

 the streets of Shanghai during the time I was there was a 

 multitude of live snipes, caught by springes, and confined in 

 wicker-cages, several dozen of which might be purchased for 

 a dollar. A very peculiar description of woodcock was now 

 and then offered for sale, but of which I saw no living spe- 

 cimens during my tour. It was something smaller than the 

 same denizen of our woods in England, and the plumage 

 lighter, intermixed with white feathers, but in flavour much 

 the same. 



As we slowly threaded the intricacies of the various canals 

 that formed the medium of our passage through this appa- 

 rently inexhaustible granary, we came upon some very 

 original and curious fishing establishments. The canal was 

 traversed by a very light, elastic bamboo fence, with nume- 

 rous inlets, conducting into a labyrinth of holes and corners, 

 where the fish are eventually entrapped, and ladled out with 

 a large landing-net. The proprietor dwells in a cottage on 

 the bank, where he also possesses reservoirs containing fish 

 in readiness for sale to the different boats that pass by; fish, 

 both salt and fresh, forming the chief nourishment of the 

 common people, in addition to rice. The boats make their 

 way through this elastic fence, which gives way as they pass, 

 and resumes again its perpendicular position. 



The cormorant fishing, which we witnessed nearly every 

 day, has been so well described by Messrs. Hue, Fortune, 

 and other celebrated writers on China, that it must appear 

 presumptuous in me to add my humble testimony to the 



