FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Sept. 22, 1906. 
45 2 
SB 
A CHINESE SPORTSMAN AND HIS EQUIPMENT. 
tection against the scrub oak briars which grow 
on the hillsides; but there was a lightness and 
noiselessness in the step, which showed that the 
heavy boot of the foreigner would not suit him 
so well, The clothes were no protection against 
the chilly winds that swept the low lying plains 
between the hills-and the shores of the river. 
A Chinaman seldom shoots over a dog. Oc¬ 
casionally a sportsman of the highest class will 
be accompanied with beaters, but oftener his 
noiseless step and quick eye find the game and 
bag it. When I was a boy it was the habit to 
sight the gun with one eye closed, but now the 
fashion is to keep both eyes open on the bird and 
let the gun follow the eyes. This fashion was long 
known to the Chinese sportsman before the 
westerner knew there was such an instrument as 
a gun. Sometimes a Chinese sportsman simply 
presses the breech of the gun against his side 
and confides to his hands the office of directing 
the position of the barrel in accordance with 
the accuracy of his eyes. I have seen them 
shoot with the most apparent indifference as to 
how the gun was held, but at the same time the 
eyes did not fail, for invariably, the snipe or 
pheasant would fall at the discharge of the gun. 
The Chinese also knew that hard shot were more 
suitable for a gun built smaller at the muzzle 
than at the breech before the process of chilling 
shot was known in the West. They prefer shot 
made of iron, and will cut nails and pieces of 
wire into small square slugs and shoot with such 
in preference to the best grade of chilled shot. 
The shot of native manufacture are very irregu¬ 
lar, and are made of iron. When the iron is 
melted the liquid metal is poured from a height 
on to a stone laid in a tub of water, and when 
cool the pellets are collected and sorted ac¬ 
cording to size, but not passed through sieves, 
as is the foreign custom, a process which causes 
the pellets to be very irregular in size and shape. 
A friend informs me that on one occasion, 
and at the close of a cold December, he was 
walking near a lake, when he saw a Chinaman 
who was beckoning to him. As he approached 
he was asked not to shoot the ducks in the lake 
as a Chinese sportsman was in the water, and 
awaiting to see what would happen, he saw the 
sportsman approaching the shore, wearing a 
large bamboo collar. He was carrying a basket 
containing a few wild and three tame ducks 
secured together by a string. His dress was of 
goatskin with the wool inside; his stockings 
were stitched to his clothing, and so oiled as to 
be nearly waterproof, and thus accoutred he im¬ 
mersed his body, using the cangue as a float. 
On his hat were placed bunches of grass, and 
on the cangue two or three decoy ducks. He 
would then approach the wildfowl, and when 
near enough dexterously catch the unsuspecting 
duck by the leg and drag it under the water. 
My friend informed me that he watched the 
sportsman until he had filled his basket. 
One of the photographs illustrates how a 
Chinese fowler will enter the water up to his 
neck, in the coldest weather, to shoot ducks. 
Here it appears that a light wooden frame or a 
small punt supports his gingal or matchlock. 
The frame floats in front of him, while he, fol¬ 
lowing, is concealed from view by bunches of 
grass and weeds stuck on his hat. As soon as 
within range, which is invariably a very short 
one, he fires into “the brown” a heavy charge of 
iron shot. He never fires at two or three, as 
his shot costs money. If the western sports¬ 
man is unable to appreciate the equipment of a 
Chinese sportsman, he will not withhold his ad¬ 
miration from the zeal and energy which dis¬ 
cards all ideas of comfort in his pursuit of 
game. J. 
And the Dog Came Back. 
Des Moines, Iowa, Sept. 1$.— Editor Forest 
and Stream: Last January, Mr. D. Weeks, of 
this city, took with him to Hot Springs, South 
Dakota, a two-year-old collie dog, by name “Bill.” 
Mr. Weeks went into a hospital for treatment 
and was there two months. During this time, 
the dog came every day to the rear of the build¬ 
ing, or an elevator, where he could look through 
the window and see his master. Whenever he 
could get through the door, the dog would go 
straight to his master’s room, and stay there till 
put out. 
After two months the dog was sold to a ranch¬ 
man two hundred miles east of Hot Springs, 
twenty-five miles from a railroad. Mr. Weeks 
returned home, and thought nothing more about 
the dog until three days ago “Bill” walked up 
to his old home here, and made himself known 
at the kitchen door. He was in fairly good con¬ 
dition, only his toe nails were worn down. It 
is “Bill” for sure, for he performed the same 
tricks as he learned before going west one thou¬ 
sand miles, and has been identified by neighbors. 
How he got home, and how he rustled for grub 
on the way, will probably remain a mystery. My 
own idea is that he took the back track or the 
railroad to Hot Springs; then finding his former 
master gone, followed the railroad till he got 
home. Prairie dogs, rabbits and ground-roosting 
birds would afford him food in the country; and 
when he reached towns, could pick up food in 
alleys. 
This is the longest trip I have ever heard of 
and read of, taken by an animal. Who can beat 
it? R. L. Blair. 
Hunting Without a Gun. 
You may send the writer who believes in hunt¬ 
ing without a gun out here in the spring when 
ducks come. I claim him for a “pardner.” 
I was hunting last fall up near Malta Bend, 
as fine a duck country as there is anywhere, I 
think, and I believe I hunted part of the time 
without a gun. It happened this way. It was 
just in front of a storm; and the ducks were 
flying thick and rapidly. I unloaded my traps 
from the wagon and plunged into the long grass 
that lines the shores of a lake that never fails 
to bring ducks and geese in spring and fall. The 
point I was making for was about a mile from 
where I started in, and by the time I had got 
there I had killed eight. Just before I got in 
position to “slay ’em,” a very fine-looking setter 
dog came to me and anchored himself as though 
he meant to see the fun. 
Here come the ducks by the hundreds oyer 
the point of timber; they pitch down and skim 
along, giving a fair shot with both barrels; and 
down come three ducks fat and sleek. The dog 
retrieved them in a workmanlike manner. 
Hurriedly putting new shells in the gun, I cfld 
not notice that one of them was wet; and when 
I emptied the gun the next time that “settled 
it,” I could no more get that shell out than I 
could fly. The ducks came thick and fast, and 
almost sat on my head; and the look of disgust 
that that dog would give me, when I would fail 
to shoot as each flock came sailing over us, was 
too comical to describe. I was as completely 
without a gun as the writer of your article could 
wish. This condition of things could not last 
long; and finally the dog struck out, I suppose 
for home; and I struck out for the wagon. 
It may be that there is something in hunting 
without a gun, but it certainly is not satisfaction. 
J. D. A. 
The Kingfisher. 
Bar Harbor, Me., Sept. 13. —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I cannot tell how saddened I was upon 
arriving here fresh from the Maine woods, 
where I had so delighted in the beauty of the 
kingfishers, to read in Forest and Stream the 
account of Wooden Sinker of how he had shot 
nearly 200 of these beautiful birds. 
The loon is, of course, first in interest of the 
Maine birds. He is the very spirit of solitude. 
There is inexpressible poetry in his lovely cry. 
He is not good to eat. There is positively no 
reason for killing him, yet he is being exter¬ 
minated. 
Personally, I place the kingfisher next in value 
to the loon in the woods. His beauty, his air 
of alertness and intellect, curiously heightened 
by his high crest, his curious habitation, are all 
a perpetual source of pleasure. Doubtless he 
eats fish. But fish and deer there will always 
be. Sportsmen will look out for that. The 
danger is that the less valued residents of the 
woods will be destroyed out of mere wanton¬ 
ness or from the same mistaken zeal that set 
our forefathers to destroying the forest itself. 
Moosehead. 
