CHINESE FIELD SPORTS. 187 



a winner. On several occasions he had "his eye wiped" by 

 his antediluvian companion. The native is never tired of 

 watching the working of really good foreign dogs. He usually 

 has a canine companion of his own, but there does not seem 

 to have ever been the same amount of teaching devoted to 

 him as there Has to the British spaniel, setter, pointer or 

 retriever, never enough, that is to say, to be passed on 

 from generation to generation. But, as we shall see, the 

 native dog is capable of a training suited to the circumstances, 

 and I have myself seen them work thick cover very thoroughly. 

 There seems to be no special breed used. Sometimes it is 

 one of the purely native varieties, sometimes, in these days, 

 a cross between native and foreign. The last of the kind 

 which I have seen was a brindled dog showing evident traces 

 of the bull terrier in his build. He belonged to a sport who 

 was accompanied by a small boy, the pair travelling along 

 the creeks in a tiny punt in the bottom of which there were 

 a' teal and a hen pheasant. A moment after I met them, the 

 dog put out of an almost bare grave-mound, which I had just 

 passed, a woodcock which got right into the middle of the 

 gingal discharge and was killed in very sportsman-like style. 

 The use of the boat gives the hunter in delta lands an 

 immense advantage over the foreign shot who has to "go 

 round" perhaps a mile or more to a bridge every half hour 

 or so. What these market purveyors get for their bag I 

 have never been able to find out exactly, but it may be taken 

 for granted that the the prices of the Shanghai market, with 

 its fifty, sixty, seventy cents each for hares, pheasants, and 

 woodcocks respectively, are not for them. 



Into other Chinese methods of shooting and trapping 

 game, it is not the intention here to enter. The reader will 

 find first hand information respecting this most interesting 

 topic in Mr. Wade's new edition of "With Boat and Gun in 

 the Yangtze Valley," where it will also be seen that native 

 sportsmen's attention is not confined to feathered game, but is 

 given equally to other wild life, including the highly dangerous, 

 but better paying quarry, the royal tiger himself, of whom 

 more anon. There is, however, a recent experience of Mr. 

 Wade's which, with his permission, I wish to rescue from the 

 pages of "The North China Daily News" where comparatively 

 fewwillseeitagain. Itdealswithaphasein native dog-training 

 and gingal work which is apparently new to everybody. In 

 the graphic words of the writer, the story runs thus: — 



"The third incident we witnessed occurred at the well 

 known Shapa, or lower barrier. A native shooter had his 

 gingal with him — a most uncanny looking weapon. That 

 there should be no question as to its length, it was placed 

 upright alongside myself, and towered above my head two feet 



