CHAPTER XLVI. 



CHINESE FIELD SPORTS. 



As a link connecting the chapters on birds with those 

 on mammals and other wild animals, some account of the 

 sporting practices of the Chinese, amongst whom may be 

 included Mongols, Manchus, etc., will be of interest. In 

 up-country trips from Shanghai we see little if anything of 

 this sort. Possibly the doctrine of the sacredness of life, 

 so strenuously held by the devout Buddhist, may have 

 something to do with the scarcity of Chinese sportsmen, but 

 the probability is that more material reasons have greater 

 weight. No ordinary country farmer can afford to purchase 

 a gun for himself or his son, and if he could, cartridges at 

 the rate of six cents each or, as he would count them, at 

 sixty cash, would be such a constant reminder of the drain 

 on his exchequer, that the weapon would soon disappear. 

 "Bang went saxpence," the thrifty Scotsman's complaint 

 respecting his expenses before he had been twenty-four 

 hours in London, would provide a very inadequate laconism 

 for his Chinese counterpart. Hence it is that the parties of 

 country sportsmen met with are few and far between. It 

 occasionally happens that a man here and there gets the 

 use of a gingal for a day or so and then, with a few charges 

 of powder and anything suitable as substitutes for shot, he 

 will sally forth, perhaps accompanied by half a dozen village 

 admirers and as many "wonks," in the hope of more execu- 

 tion than the upshot is likely to record. On these occasions, 

 judging from my own experience of what I have seen, the 

 methods employed are far too noisy and ill-conducted to 

 secure game even if the marksman had western weapons 

 and knew how to shoot. The more the shouting and com- 

 motion the more the game expected. Reeds are violently 

 beaten and dogs sent into covers in such a manner as 

 effectually to scare any bird or beast away from, rather than 

 towards, the gunner. 



Very different is the method of the man who knows 

 the professional shot who either from sheer love of the 

 chase, or for the living to be got from the disposal of 

 the game secured, spends his days in scouring the country- 

 side for whatever in the form of edible life may come 



