92 PHEASANT SHOOTING. 



C. aurituni is of a fine slate-blue colour with no white, except on 

 the throat and ear-tufts, while C. a. tibetanum is white all over except 

 for the top of the head, which is black, the wdngs, which are brown and 

 the tail which is black with a metallic sheen. 



Eared-pheasants are only to be found in high mountainous and 

 heavily wooded regions. They are essentially birds of the forest, and 

 are very fast runners. Though not strong on the wing, they afford 

 good sport by their peculiar habit of soaring, or, to use more up to 

 date language, vol-planing from the crest of the high ridges, on which 

 they live, down or across the intervening valleys. Being heavy birds 

 they soon get up a terrific momentum, so that their speed exceeds that 

 of the common pheasant. Unless they escape out at the bottom of 

 the valley, or cross the ridge into the next, they will repeat the soaring 

 manceuvre over and over again, so that a sportsman, standing at the 

 bottom of the valley, gets a series of shots that will test his skill and 

 judgement to the uttermost, and he will be a proud man if he returns 

 to camp with four or five of these handsome birds. 



To return to the Chinese pheasant, (which 1 will mention hereafter 

 as the pheasant), there are no really good coverts within easy 

 reach of Tientsin. The hills north of Peking annually yield a few 

 brace to some ardent sportsmen, who do not mind stiff climbing. 



The most accessible pheasant grounds are, however, down the 

 Tsin-Pu line, at the various stations beyond Peng-pu and further south 

 round Nanking. Of course these grounds were quite inaccessible till 

 the railway was opened, and even now they are only practicable when 

 the weekly express is running. 



Other districts within two or three day's journey are, the valleys 

 east of IMukden and Kai-yuan in i\Ianchuria, the hinterland from 

 Antung in North Ivorea and South Manchuria, South Shansi and North 

 Honan, accessible from the Pei-han line by means of the Pekin Syndi- 

 cate line and the Pienlo, East Shansi accessible from the Chen-tai 

 line by getting off at Ping-tan, the station for Ping-ting Chou, and West 

 Shansi, accessible from Tai-yuan Fu, the terminus of the same line. 



In any of these places good bags may be made, but for sheer num- 

 bers of pheasants no country can compare with the sparsely populated 

 loess districts of North-central Shensi from Yen-an Fu to Pei-tung- 

 kuan, and one or two uninhabited areas in Eastern Kansu. Here the 

 birds are so thick, that shooting them practically ceases to be a sport. 

 To begin with they are so tame that it is almost impossible to get 

 them to fiy, and it is not till one has been in the district some time 

 and frightened them a bit that they will offer decent shots. 



