Apzol 4, 1903.1 
FOREST AND SI REAM. 
^67 
radius of five miles of the city to enjoy the keenest sport 
and return with a bag well filled in quantity and variety. 
That finest of all game birds, the pheasant, were plentiful, 
and the ponds were full of geese and ducks; and the 
bamboo partridge, the quail and snipe were incidental 
shooting. The deer was within range of the average shot, 
and when I listened, as the successful hunting expedi- 
tions were recounted and the "big bag" made, it was easy 
to account for the present scarcity of game where it was 
a few years ago so abundant. I could not appreciate the 
emphatic assertion that "there were true sportsmen in 
those days," for, to me, the killing of a hundred or two 
hundred pheasants a day by one shooter simply because 
pheasants were plentiful, was not true sportsmanship. 
But since the advent of Western civilization into 
China an unending warfare has been waged against the 
animals and fowls of the empire, and now one has to 
travel far into the interior before making a respectable 
bag, even after several days' shooting. The game which 
formerly was abundant around the open ports has been 
shot or frightened away by the almost ceaseless fusillade 
to be heard during the shooting season. 
And the same agencies are busily exterminating the 
game of the forests and plains of happier America ; and it 
is to be hoped that President Roosevelt will succeed in ex- 
citing a public sentiment to the enactment of proper laws 
to protect game against the expeditions of shooters who 
shoot for money only; even in China the necessity for 
prohibitory measures has been recognized to the extent of 
prohibiting the further exportation of pheasant skins to 
Paris and other centers of fashion, although at the risk 
of incurring the dissatisfaction of the fair ones. 
To reach the interior of China, the shooter boards a 
houseboat and is towed near the shooting grounds. There 
are regular lines of steam launches running from 
Shanghai to many of the chief commercial towns of the 
interior, and with these towns as the objective points, 
there is no difficulty in reaching any desirable point 
further inland, as the country is so intersected with creeks 
and canals that travel by light draft or flat bottom boats 
is greatly convenienced and expedited. 
The houseboat is indispensable for comfortable recrea- 
tion in inland China. The dimensions and fittings are 
according to the taste of the owner. Generally the boat 
is about fifty feet long, with an extreme breadth of about 
eleven feet and a half, and measuring over seven feet 
from top of house to under side keel plank, thus giving 
the occupant full room to stand erect. There are two or 
more .sleeping bunks, according to the space desired, with 
cook house, bath and toilet room ; main cabin, dog kennel 
and other necessary rooms. The boat is also fitted with 
mast and sail, and usually has a crew of six. The captain 
is known as the Loadah, who remains in charge of the 
houseboat during the year at a salary of about twelve 
Mexican dollars per month, while the working crew are 
coolies hired when needed at about thirty Mexican cents 
per day. Unless the wind is fair for sailing the house- 
boat is propelled, when separated from the launch, by 
means of sculling oar, by the Chinese called Yulohing. 
With such a boat as above generally indicated, the 
shooter can spend ten or fifteen days in comfort at any 
point he may be able to reach in the interior of China, 
and during the shooting season there is no danger of 
malaria, though it is a safe precaution to take at least 
one dose of quinine a day. 
On arriving at the place selected for shooting, the 
houseboat is made fast to some tree on the banks of the 
canal or creek^ and, if an old sportsman who knows the 
country, there need be no delay in the start; but, for a 
sportsman who is unacquainted with his surroundings, it 
is prudent to take his latitude and fix well in his mind the 
location of his boat before making a start. It sometimes 
happens that the inexperienced, in his excitement and re- 
sentment, caused by a cock pheasant which has, with the 
most apparent unconcern, escaped the contents of both 
barrels of_ the gun, forgets every point of the compass 
and finds it difficult to retrace his steps before overtaken 
by night. And one is frequently led far astray by the 
sport to find a suitable crossing place over the creeks 
and wide ditches which often confront him in every direc- 
tion. 
But the natives are not unfriendly. There is little if 
any danger from them. When one preserves his temper 
and keeps himself well in hand it is seldom that he is 
wantonly insulted by the natives. I have frequently spent 
more than a week in the interior of China, more than a 
hundred miles from any open port, and never experienced 
any evidence of an unfriendly intention. In fact, the 
farther I have been from an open port the more friendly 
have I found the natives, and the more happy and con- 
tented in the cultivation of their little farms ; and so 
much happiness and contentment naturally presents the 
question, why disturb it with new theories and new in- 
ventions? The Chinese are not altogether and alwa3'S 
responsible for that feeling of resentment which has mani- 
fested itself with the torch and rifle as exponents. Some 
of the aggressions against them would have stirred the 
Saxon race to every known resource of warfare. 
Nearly every Shanghai sportsman has his dog, and it is 
an open question as to "what is the best kind of dog for 
general shooting purposes in China?" Each sportsman 
lias his preference, and each is partial to the qualities of 
his own dog; and_ on this subject the opinion of my 
friend is worth stating in his own words. 
'What seemed to be required for shooting throughout 
the season is a strong, well broken, but, perhaps, not too 
highly bred pointer ; one that will take the water, face the 
thick covers, and possibly retrieve; and there are such 
dogs in Shanghai. The coats of soine setters lie very 
fiat, and they are the next best dogs to pointers; but the 
long-haired varieties, though good and useful in their way, 
had better not be taken up countr}^ until they can work 
the cover with_ impunity to themselves. A sentimental 
objection to pointers is that they are not so companion- 
able as the other breeds, which is true to a certain extent ; 
but it must be remembered that when a pointer is on 
business he means business, and that is exactly what he is 
wanted for. In choosing a pointer, always try to get one 
with sloping shoulders, long, airy neck, a deep but not 
broad chest, and a loin arched, very wide, strong and 
muscular. Some useful pointers occasionally arrive at 
Shanghai from Germany. For the most part they are well 
educated and good at retrieving, but they run big and 
he^vy. ftn4 are \qq giveu to 'pottering.' A iast 
word may be said in favor of the pointer: he can be 
worked from the beginning to the end of the shooting 
season; whereas it is little less than cruelty to take a 
spaniel or a setter out before December." It would seem 
from the foregoing opinion of an old and experienced 
shooter in China that the pointer is the best dog for 
shooting purposes in this part of the world. 
Since the invention of the breechloader and smokeless 
powder nearly every sportsman here is equipped with 
such a weapon and such ammunition. Most of the double- 
barrel breechloaders are of English or American make. 
At the shooting clubs — there are two at Shanghai — I see 
the Parker and the Remington, and the Winchester guns, 
and I have heard no complaint of the shooting qualities 
of either. The only objection against the American-made 
guns is that they are too heavy and wanting somewhat in 
symmetry, an objection that could easily be removed by 
the gunmaker. But the guns I have seen of the American 
make are generally of the fifty dollar grade, and these 
naturally do not "show up well" by the side of an Eng- 
lish gun costing thirty or forty pounds at the factory. 
There are two or three Parker guns of high grade which 
have given great satisfaction to the owners, and I have 
heard no complaint as to the shooting quality of any gun 
of American make, and would suggest that more attention 
be given to the building of a lighter twelve-bore gun and 
of more symmetry. All the sporting guns, as a rule, are 
of the twejve-bore gauge and of the standard length. My 
own giui is a twelve-bore, with barrels thirty-two inches 
long, and made for me several years ago by W. W. 
Greener, of Birmingham, England. It is built of the 
Greener's wrought steel, and weighs only six pounds and 
a half, and, like all of the Greener guns, is of beautiful 
sjTnmetry, long range and accurate. 
But the native sportsman has no such a gun as I have 
referred to, though his bag, after a day's shooting, is 
often as full as that of his W^estern competitor who uses 
the most improved breechloader. His gun is the ordinary 
matchlock or gingae, except in rare instances, when he 
has been able to buy an old-fashioned flint lock musket 
which has been changed into a percussion musket. The 
barrel is of iron and about five feet long, with a bore of 
about one-third of an inch; the iron is thickest at the 
breech and tapers gradually towards the muzzle. The 
bore at the breech is about the size of a half dollar coin, 
while at the muzzle it is about that of a five cent piece, 
and thus it seems that this narrowing of the bore, to give 
a greater velocity to the charge, anticipated more than a 
thousand years the choke bore gun which is the pride of 
m.odern gunniakers. 
The ammunition which the native sportsman takes into 
the field is as primitive as his gun. Where modern 
chemicals are not used the powder has undergone no ma- 
terial improvement since it was first known in China long 
before known in Europe ; and the claim to have first dis- 
coA'ered gunpowder is made by the Chinese with much 
positive evidence in its favor. Within the last decade 
there have been several powder mills built in China, and 
both black and smokeless powder are manufactured, but 
the grade is not the best. The native sportsmen I have 
met in the field mostly use a very inferior grade of black 
powder and iron shot, many of the shot are very irregu- 
lar in every respect, and are the result of choppings from 
wire and nails, with no regard to regularity of size or 
shape._ But the Chinaman pours his powder into his gun, 
rams it down with an iron rod until packed at the bottom, 
and then pours in the iron shot without any wad on the 
powder and with a thin wad of leaf or paper over the 
shot, and it is astonishing how successful the native 
sportsman is with such a gun thus loaded. 
The only American brand of smokeless powder I have 
seen in use here was manufactured by Laflin & Rand. 
Recently an American gave me a few cartridges loaded 
with the Laflin & Rand Infallible powder, which I found 
satisfactor3^ The opinion of sportsmen is rather favor- 
able to Schultze powder for this climate, though Ballistite, 
E. C. and other brands are in general use. So far mv 
preference is for the E. C. brand, which I have always 
found to give complete satisfaction; but one of the gun 
clubs is now using Ballistite and the other Schultze. The 
smokeless powder manufactured from chemical com- 
pounds, the least susceptible to climatic influence, will 
ultimately be the preferred powder in China. For the 
large bore fowling gun Schultze is being used in prefer- 
ence to black powder. 
China is still the "happy hunting ground," but when 
the railroads now in contemplation are completed, the 
sportsmen will have easier and quicker access to the far 
interior, and then here, as in some other parts of the 
world, one will have to be content with shooting half- 
tamed fowls and animals. T. R. Jernigan. 
L Those Reminiscences/' 
Orient Point, Long Island, N. Y.~Editor Forest and 
Stream: "Old Angler" has given me much pleasure 
while readmg his reminiscences, for which I wish to 
thank him. In speaking of retrievers he mentions a cross 
between a Scotch collie bitch and an Irish water spaniel 
as the best retriever he ever saw. The best retriever I 
ever saw was a full blooded Scotch collie. He took sick 
two months ago and died with his head lying on my arm, 
the dear, loving fellow. At low tide I used to wade in 
and anchor the decoys, but I never had to wade in to 
brnig them out again. I never had occasion to use a boat 
at all when shooting from the land so long as Tony was 
around. He loved my gun almost as well as I, and 
would carry it in the case half a mile for me. He would 
carry the ducks and put them in the wagon quicker than 
any boy. I could leave my gloves and pocketbook at the 
Sound where I had been lying for ducks, one-half mile 
away, and he would go back and never fail to bring them. 
He had a nose like a fox, yet he was no good for quail. 
This seemed beyond him. I would be glad to know if 
others have had such an experience with full blooded 
collies. Tony did not love the water by any means, but 
simply went into it because he was told to do so, whether 
it was for ducks made of wood or those which had been 
killed. He picked up a half bushel of potatoes one day 
and gave them to his master who was seated on a sulky 
hay rake. If some dogs do not have reason, I think I 
know of human beitigs who are really beneath then;-^ 
having neither reason nor ingtinQt, 
"Old A.ngler" speaks of "shooting from the hip" (by 
faith, as it were), and not by sighting along the barrel. 
1 think if the law required all the field shooting to be 
done from the hip the birds would have all the protection 
they needed. I think I might possibly hit a flock of barns 
shooting from the hip, but not a single quail. 
Now, a few words about game protection. At present 
there is no limit in this State as to how many ducks or 
quail may be killed by a person in one day. In this 
vicinity it is and has been for years an uncommon thing 
for one person to kill more than 10 ducks a day. I have 
been shooting over fifty years, and during the time I 
have never killed more than ten ducks in one day, and 
never more than 96 in any one season, which was in 1901. 
1 do not think there is any good reason why any man 
should be allowed to kill more than twenty ducks in one 
day or more than ten quail. Nearly all the ducks near 
Orient Point are what we may call trash ducks — such, as 
coots, old squaws and mergansers, with a few black ducks. 
I have never killed a mallard, canvasback or redhead; 
not because I was sorry for them, but because I never had 
the opportunity. I am very certain of one thing, which is 
that not more than one out of ten ducks which visit this 
section in fall and spring gets killed. Of course, the more 
they are hunted the less likely they are to stay with us, 
and the more likelj'' they are to visit when there is less 
noise. Uncle Dan. 
A Lucky Day. 
We had started down the wood road from our home 
camp on Black Brook about the middle of the afternoon, 
and in an hour or two had settled upon a smooth space 
in a bii-ch grove, dropped our blankets, swamped out the 
undergrowth and roots, made a bed of boughs on each 
aide of the fire-place, and cut some birch poles and a 
couple of green logs for night wood. Our camp was 
handy to the calHng place on the pond, and far enough 
back to let us have a fire; in fact it met with all the re- 
quirements. The afternoon was windy and the tree tops 
were reeling about in a drunken revel. It had rained 
every day for a week; but only a shower, so that the 
m.arshy barrens beyond cam'p were comparatively dry. 
"Travel" is the word that Old Tom always used for this 
kind of hunting. It is heart-breaking work to tramp over 
these mossy barrens. One hardly gets out of a mud hole 
before tripping on a stout root or a wiry vine. But we 
coasted safely along the edge of the "plain," as Tom 
called it, stooped behind the bushes and little fir trees 
whenever a new vista opened before us. There was a 
maze of little parks and barrens, each in its own setting of 
dark trees that stood about like a frame. Sometimes it 
was_ a single line of spruces ; again it was a forest of 
miniature evergreens or even a ridge covered with hard- 
woods, with the game trails as connecting links. It was 
quite a little pull down to the pond, a shallow mud- 
bottomed basin much frequented by ducks and caribou. 
It would have been better judgment for us to have re- 
tired to our beds till morning, for one cannot call up a 
moose in a wind storm, or in fact in any wind at all. But 
do we not all remember that sometimes we have made 
V. wonderful catch of trout of a hot summer afternoon 
when all the signs were unfavorable? So we sat quietly 
ui?_der a bush on the boggy outlet and tooted away in a 
vain endeavor to tickle the ear and fancy of some lovelorn 
moose. Old Tom was an artist on this long pipe of silver 
and gold. He gave his call in a series of three close 
together, then after an interval of fifteen minutes, three 
more. With ears cocked for the slightest sounds I 
watched the clouds and the tree tops and the waves on 
our muddy little ocean, wondering how soon the rain 
would begin, and shivering at the damp prospect. Such 
waiting is cold work, and the fear of a coming storm ter- 
rible so far from shelter. When it comes it is nothing, 
but the first drops are worse than a flood. So we sat and 
waited. If one has that charming habit of whittling, there 
are few times that it cannot be turned to advantage. My 
knife was open, and I was soon at work on a miniature 
priddle, then a salmon spear, and finally a rifle, but for a 
Lilliputian, and so the day drew near its close. The sun 
opened up a great golden window in the gray clouds and 
we forgot our possible moose in gazing at the contrast 
of flaming heavens and sombre pines. Above a glowing 
undulating sky, glorious in color, below a pond that might 
v/ell picture desolation and solitude, with long-fingered 
tamaracks and spruces that would make a fine grewsome 
setting for a murder scene. But the corpse continued to 
remain absent; so finally, with the returning gray pall of 
cloud, we turned our backs on Lake Despair and made for 
our blankets and the sheltering birches we called home. 
We had some little difficulty in finding the camp and our 
spring, but the eye of Old Tom was not long at fault. A 
few rods through the dark woods on the dimmest of trails 
and_ we were there. A match changed the aspect of 
affairs; our fire was soon going, and where all had been 
but a varied kind of blackness, it was now bright and 
cheerful. A fire is like a family for company. It is 
tisually bright and cheerful, although, like the other, it has 
its moods. Our little kettle was soon boiling, our broth 
made, our bread toasting on a stick, our steak broiling 
over the clean hardwood logs, and ourselves beaming 
with the comfort of warmth and food. This birch grove 
was not all white-barked trees; there were rough-coated 
yellow birches and a few giant spruces and hemlocks that 
somehow had escaped the devastation of the lumberman. 
As the night shut in its dark walls about us close enough 
to make our home cosy, the stars came out overhead and 
shone down through the trees, and for a little time the 
v/ind ceased. It was delightful to lie on the balsam 
boughs close to that good brown mother earth. The heat 
of the fire and the hiss and glow of the coals and the 
neighborhood of the great trees and the odor of the 
balsam all contrived to bring their spell over me, and the 
next thing I knew was that there were only a t'ew coals 
where that big fire had been and the wind was just roar- 
ing overhead in the branches. Here and there through 
the roof of green one could see that the stars were 
blotted out by the clouds. For some time I lay and 
wished for more fire, and finally got out of my sleeping- 
bag and put the wood on myself After a minute Or two 
it roared fiercely enough and i drowsed and went to sleep 
again. There was a decided change next time I woke 
Everything was a soft gray, wet and chilly. Throu-:^h the 
Ijrjmche? ^, fin? i;m was falling, on<? of the kind that be- 
