194 WILD LIFE IN CHINA. 



there immediatelj' become tame! Tigers and leopards are 

 also mentioned as common in Yunnan and Quangsi. Boars 

 with tusks a foot and a half long tear men to .pieces. There 

 were baboons in Szechwan. The musk deer was well known. 

 I have met with no mention of falconry in this interest- 

 ing volume. The birds which most occupied the attention 

 of the compilers seem to have been those of a fabulous 

 nature, but the cormorant, owing to its use in fishing, greatly 

 interested everybody. We have to hark back to Marco Polo 

 for early descriptions of Chinese falconry. In his fifteenth 

 chapter he tells us that the Court was furnished daily with 

 "a thousand pieces of game, quails excepted." To aid in the 

 capture of this immense quantity no fewer than 5,000 hunting 

 dogs were employed? When a grand hunting excursion was 

 made into the northern wilds, the Grand Khan was attended 

 "by full ten thousand falconers, who carry with them a vast 

 number of gerfalcons, peregrine falcons, and sakers, as well 

 as many vultures {?\ in order to pursue the game along the 

 bank of the river." (It is thought this means the Sungari 

 or the Ussuri.) Bands of from 200 or more hunters wandered 

 separately in these excursions. "Ever}' bird belonging to 

 His Majesty, or to any of his nobles, has a small silver label 

 fastened to its leg, on which is engraved the name of the 

 keeper." His Majesty the Khan seems to have carried hunt- 

 ing luxury to a height unknown even in India. Not satisfied 

 with one elephant to carry him, which, however, he was com- 

 pelled to use in the narrow passes of the Manchurian hills, 

 he more often had two or four on the backs of which there 

 was placed a platform sheltered by a canopy which could be 

 thrown back when cranes appeared in the sky and the falcons 

 vyere flown at them. Storks, swans, herons, and a variety 

 of other birds were taken, "the excellence and the extent of 

 the sport being greater than it is possible to express." It is 

 curious to find laws relating to the keeping of hawks, etc. 

 common to China and the West. The old \'enetian tells us, 

 "It is strictly forbidden to every tradesman, mechanic, or 

 husbandman throughout His Majesty's dominions, to keep 

 a vulture, hawk, or any other bird used for the pursuit of 

 game, or any sporting dog : nor is a nobleman or cavalier 

 to presume without permission to chase beast or bird in 

 the neighbourhood of the place where His Majesty takes 

 up his residence." In England no priest might fly anything 

 more noble than a sparrow-hawk. Neither prince, nobleman, 

 nor peasant might kill game of any kind between March and 

 October, a law which China might once more, with great 

 profit, replace on the list of actively enforced statutes. 



Whether falconry travelled westwards from China, or 

 whether it was the spontaneous suggestion of nature to many 



