THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
With regard to their ferocity, I saw a hunter with a nasty scar which he 
said was made by a wounded bull, and Mr Wilson mentions that a takin 
killed a native in the locality where Mr Zappey was hunting. 
The Szechuan variety is usually killed in the neighbourhood of salt 
licks, but I never saw any such place in Shensi. It is by no means an 
easy animal to hunt, as it frequents very rough ground, but the actual 
shooting is not a difficult matter, in Shensi at any rate, where, owing 
to the very rough nature of the country, one can approach quite close to 
the animals. 
In the neighbourhood of salt licks, the takin make regular paths, and 
advantage is taken of this habit to spear them by means of an ingenious 
contrivance described at length in Mr Wilson’s book. The biter is occa- 
sionally bitten, or rather speared, and a servant of Mr Zappey ’s suffered 
for many weeks through accidentally tripping over the string of one of these 
traps. The iron spearhead passed right through his thigh, fortunately 
missing the arteries and bones. A takin wounded in one of these traps 
rarely escapes death. 
The natives round Wa-shan kill takin by means of a crossbow and arrows 
set alongside a run and also in foot snares. 
The horns, I should have mentioned, somewhat resemble those of a 
wildebeeste, but are rougher. A good pair would measure somewhere 
about twenty inches. I was amused to see among a collection of big 
game trophies exhibited at Earl’s Court in 1913, a pair of takin horns 
detached from their cores and affixed to a boss the wrong way round, a 
position which doubtless caused the uninitiated to marvel at the strange 
beasts which still roam the earth. 
Wapiti (native name, Hung-lu-tze ; Tibetan, Ghwar ), found near 
Tachienlu. No foreigner has ever shot this animal, and its identity is 
uncertain. Major M’Neill saw a few hinds but no stag in the country to 
the west of Tachienlu. Mr Wilson saw some in the same locality in 1904. 
He describes them as ranging from the Yunnan border northward to 
S. Kansu. “ The local chief of Chiala, residing at Tachienlu, keeps several 
in captivity at his summer palace (so-called), a few miles outside the town. 
These animals are about the size of a large donkey, and the stags carry 
fine horns. . . . The winter coat is light grey, and the summer coat rufous 
brown, with a light rump patch.” It is impossible from this description 
to say whether the animal is the same as the Kansu deer, stags of which 
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