CHINA 
Tigers ( Felis tigris) , native name, Lao-hu , are scattered throughout the 
country, but are hard to get. I have seen skins and skulls for sale at Han- 
kow which I was told were obtained in Hupeh. Chang -yang and Patung 
are said to be favourite districts for these animals. In West Szechuan they 
are occasionally found near the sacred Wa-shan, and in the Chiench’ang 
Valley, and southwards into Yunnan they become commoner and increase 
in size. The Hupeh tiger is rather small. Tigers are also found in the 
province of Fukien. Near Amoy a company of seven Chinamen have the 
monopoly, which they have inherited, of killing tigers. The country is 
composed of large black granite boulders which, in many instances, 
have fallen together in such a way as to form caves. In these tigers 
and leopards are found. The Chinese kill them with three-pronged spears, 
after smoking them out, and they have been shot by a few Europeans. 
Tigers are also found within two days’ journey of Foo-chow, and in the 
provinces of Hunan, Kweichou, and Kwangsi. In Szechuan, though, as 
I have already said, they are to be met with in the jungle around Wa-shan, 
they are rare. 
Speaking generally, tigers in China are found at comparatively low 
altitudes, are thinly scattered through the warmer districts, and are 
nowhere easy to get. 
In the north the Manchurian tiger ( F . t. mongolica ) provides the finest and 
most imposing member of the f elides which can fall to a sportsman’s rifle. 
Leopards ( Felis pardus) , native name, Lao-patsze , are widely distributed 
and are captured by the natives in log -traps and in bamboo nooses. They 
are particularly abundant in Yunnan and Kweichou, but are nowhere 
easy to shoot. Two races are distinguished in Hupeh: F. p. variegata, a 
lowland variety, darker, redder and with a thinner tail than F. p. fontanieri , 
found on the higher ground, up to 11,000 feet and more. This latter animal 
is smaller, paler in colouring and with a bushier tail than that found from 
the coast westward to the neighbourhood of Ichang. I have found their 
tracks in Kansu at a height of 11,000 feet when after roe deer. It is hardly 
necessary to add that the roe were conspicuous, as every other kind of 
game, by their absence. 
Snow leopard ( Felis uncia ), native name, Hsueh-pao-tsze, do not inhabit 
China proper, though skins can often be purchased in Cheng-tu, Chung- 
king and towns on the Tibetan border. They are brought in from Tibet. 
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