INTRODUCTION 
even one variety of that African family, the oryx. Besides these horned 
game, are lion, three races of tiger, three of leopard and some six or seven 
varieties of bear. 
A general review of the main hunting grounds will give a good idea 
of the distribution of the game and suffice as an introduction to the more 
detailed descriptions of the different areas that follow. 
Geographically we have divided this volume on Asia into the following 
heads: Nearer Asia, including Asia Minor, Syria, Arabia and the Armenian 
Highlands. Persia and the Caucasus are another two divisions dealt with 
separately. India occupies a position naturally cut off from all the others, 
the Himalayas being its northern boundary. China is dealt with as a 
whole, but as a matter of fact its hunting grounds are chiefly confined to 
the western provinces. Under the title of Inner Asia we sweep all the 
lands between the Caspian and Mongolia — Russian Turkestan, Bokhara, 
the Pamirs, and that ambition of all hill -stalkers, the Tian Shan. Upper 
Asia takes in the Altai districts, the Gobi Desert, and North-Eastern 
Siberia, towards Kamchatka. 
But these divisions must not convey to the mind that each is self-con- 
tained and constitutes a separate hunting ground. In many cases the 
areas overlap. Occasions might force the hunter to touch on one small 
corner of one division in order to get some particularly rare and “ diffi- 
cult ” trophy; while, on the other hand, a trip could be planned on which 
the traveller might touch on several of these geographical areas and obtain 
many trophies of a vastly different nature. 
Political and geographical boundaries, as well as climate and seasons, 
force the hunter to plan in accordance with them. By a review of the chief 
centres of sport and the main routes that lead to them the reader will get 
a very fair idea of how Asia is mapped out for the big game hunter. 
Broadly speaking, I should pick out the main mountain groups of Asia 
and class them by themselves as the resorts of the principal beasts of the 
chase. For instance, the Caucasus, the Himalayas, the Pamirs, the Tian 
Shan and the Altai are the chief big game haunts in Asia; there are also, 
of course, secondary ranges such as the Armenian Highlands, the Kopet 
Dagh, the Khingan, and the Pe-ling on the eastern declivities of Tibet. 
All of these have a considerable variety of animal life, any one of them 
is worth shooting over, each constitutes a separate expedition, or, if 
preferable, several may be worked together. The big mountain groups 
are for the most part the refuges of big game nowadays, but the extensive 
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