240 WILD LII-E IX CHINA. 



them from the bushes, and mauled them so badly that one 

 subsequently died. Black leopards occur — a mere variety 

 of the ordinary spotted one, in fact a simple case of melanism, 

 but I never saw the skin of such a one out in the west. In 

 Tatsienlu however, we saw a single skin of the snow leopard 

 (Felis iincia) of the central Asian plateau, and it had doubt- 

 less come from the Mantze mountains. It is certainly a 

 most handsome animal. The Sin-ling range east of Sian-fu 

 consists of rounded water-worn peaks, not above 7,000 

 feet in altitude, with deep but comparatively wide valleys 

 between. The lower mountain slopes are extremelj- 

 barren, save here and there where ancestral graves had 

 determined the salvation of a few clumps of conifers : 

 for the most part they supported a grassy vegetation 

 only, and were scarcely cultivated, though maize apparently 

 requires so little depth of earth that it can be grown on 

 almost any hillside however steep. The summits of these 

 mountains, however, from 6,000 to 7,000 feet high, were 

 crowned with a dense scrub of deciduous trees — oak, willow, 

 hazel, chestnut and the like — which in summer must form 

 an impenetrable bush from ten to fifteen ^eet in height. Here 

 were to be found large "sounders" of wild hog, which never, 

 at least inwinter, extend above the limits of cultivation, so that 

 they can be conveniently hunted from headquarters in the 

 valley. Whether it is the European or the Indian hog (an 

 almost identical species or an entirely different species) 

 does not seem very certain, for the genus Stis is considerably 

 involved. In any case the animal ranges all through Shensi 

 and Kansu, and right away south into Szechwan, being, 

 commonly met with on Omi-san and the neighbouring 

 mountains bordering the Lolo country. A female, weighing 

 between three and four hundred pounds, was shot near 

 Tai-pei-san in January, this being the only one of a number 

 seen which we secured. Around Tai-pei they did not seem 

 to extend above 8,000 feet nor below 4,000 feet, and could be 

 followed for miles along the summits of the tree clad ridges 

 by means of their lairs and rootings. This was the last we 

 saw of them, though I came across fresh tracks near the 

 summit of Omi-san, seven months later. In summer, when 

 the hogs come down amongst the crops, they do an immense 

 amount of damage, and it is customary to build shelters in 

 their neighbourhood, and watch them night and day, beating 

 gongs and firing off crackers when they approach; at that 

 season it is of course difficult to see them, though they are- 

 by no means stealthy animals. The Chinese do not seem to 

 hunt even the objectionable wild hog extensively however, 

 and only one skin was ever shown to us; domestic hogs are 

 so common, and so cheaply fed — or starved — that it is. 



