284 SPORT AND TRAVEL PAPERS 



many teal, so many indeed that they could be bought in the 

 markets for a few sen farthings. 



Game in Japan must and does decrease very rapidly, for 

 nothing is preserved ; everything is destroyed that can possibly 

 be got at. The migratory season alone affords good sport. 

 The same applies to the Japanese salmon ; the netting is so 

 constant, so thorough and extensive at the mouth of the several 

 rivers in October, when they run, that but few fish ever reach 

 the spawning beds. Again, the water of many rivers is poisoned 

 by refuse of lately-erected factories and hemp mills. Millions 

 of salmon are yearly imported from the Amur and other parts of 

 Siberia, and the need for more is increasingly felt. 



Besides snipe, quail, duck, plover, and geese, birch grouse are 

 frequent in the forests; they are "called" by the natives by 

 means of a small flute, made of bamboo, or a chicken bone, 

 tree'd by a dog, and shot one after another like the " partridges " 

 in out-of-the-way places in Canada. 



Woodcock, the same as that in Europe, breed in Hokkaido 

 (Yezo) ; a few come from Siberia in the autumn and pass south, 

 returning in the spring, curiously enough, in greatly increased 

 numbers. 



The shooting licence varies from two to twenty yen (four 

 shillings to 2), and is calculated on the amount of income 

 tax paid in the country by the applicants ; foreigners pay 

 about ten yen. 



Deer, nominally protected and formerly frequent, are now very 

 scarce, having been ruthlessly killed wholesale. The landlord 

 of an inn told us in great glee that a few winters ago he had 

 killed seven deer with a stick in about as many minutes, the 

 unfortunate animals being unable to move in the deep snow; the 

 slayer, needless to say, was on snow-shoes. The large brown 

 bear, still to be found in the dense forests of the island, is hunted 

 during his winter sleep by the Ainu, who go into the dens after 

 him and bring a good many skins to market, selling them at the 

 ridiculously small sum when the great risk to life and limb is 

 considered of seventeen yen, or thirty-four shillings. Indeed, 

 the bears have a rough time in Yezo ; not only are the old ones 

 killed wherever met, but any cub found in the den is a valuable 

 prize and is taken to the village chief's house, to be there suckled 

 by a woman and played with by the children. After a time the 



