188 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Aug. io, 1912 
It’s Easy to Reload ! 
If you haven’t time to cast bul¬ 
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shell, insert powder and 
crimp shell on to bullet. 
Does it pay? You can reload 
)0 .32-40 smokeless short range 
cartridges (buying^the bullets) in half an hour at a 
total expense of 77c.: casting bullets yourself, 3Sc.; 
the new factory cartridges cost you $2.52 per 100. 
The Ideal Hand Book tells about reloading all rifle, pis¬ 
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77ie777ar/i/z firearms Co. 
Free 
160 Pages 
27 Willow Street 
New Haven, Conn. 
No Shortcomings 
The Smith Gun has no shortcomings—not one. The 6 Hunter 
brothers, with inventions, precision, workmanship and experience, 
kept after shot gun shortcomings for 22 years, until they had wiped 
out the last and least important one. 
“6 Times 22 Years Experience” gives the shooter of a Smith 
Gun the fullest possible pleasure in the field, and the maximum 
game in his bag. 
Ask your dealer to show you the new L. C. Smith 20-gauge. 
Send for Catalog. 
HUNTER ARMS CO., 90 Hubbard St., FULTON, N. Y. 
L. C. SMITH GUNS 
The Angler’s Workshop 
RODMAKING FOR BEGINNERS 
By "Perry 0, Frazer 
Every practical angler has some room, or corner of a 
room, that he calls his workshop, and he obtains almost 
as much pleasure in working in it during the winter as 
he derives from his summer’s fishing. He may not 
make rods, but he likes to “fuss over them,” altering 
them to suit his pet ideas, making necessary repairs or 
renewing frayed windings. Others, who have a few suit¬ 
able tools—and very few are needed—make excellent fish¬ 
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have been produced in this way since Mr. Frazer’s book 
has been on the market. 
“Rodmaking for Beginners’ was not “written over 
the heads” of beginners. Anybody who knows how to 
manipulate a plane can follow the instructions, and every 
old angler finds useful hints in it. 
Besides being the first book on practical split-bamboo 
rodmaking, it contains chapters on rods of all sorts, for 
fresh and salt water fishing, and is of value in repair 
work. 
Cloth, 180 pages, several full-page illustrations and 60 
working drawings. Postpaid, $1.00. 
FOREST AND STREAM PUBLISHING CO. 
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IN SEARCH OF WOODCOCK IN CHINA. 
Looking west from the town of Dalny, should 
the dust of September not shut out the view, 
you will descry, some four miles away, a bare 
hill standing apart from many other bare hills 
that flank the port. The Chinese call it Ta-shan 
(the great hill); but to the exiled Japanese, who 
see in its outline a resemblance to the great 
and sacred mountain of their own native land, 
it is known as the Dairen Fuji. Nobody climbs 
it, for a reason presently to be explained. Be¬ 
low it, in the valley, is a long and wide river¬ 
bed, stones only at the upper end, but near the 
sea mud. A miserable watercourse meanders 
down its length, having for tributaries one or 
two muddy rivulets fringed with bent grass, 
and in one corner of the valley is a tiny marsh. 
Here, in their season, you may find a few snipe, 
and. perhaps, an occasional duck or teal. This 
inviting spot I arranged to visit with a com¬ 
panion, L., taking with us our guns and car¬ 
tridges. In the street hard by stood a 
“droshky, ” one of the many that had in palmier 
days belonged to Russians, but which have 
since, by ways devious and obscure, come into 
the hands of the original owners of the soil. 
To describe these conveyances is difficult, but 
their qualities may be summed up in the one 
adjective “negative.” Once they had springs, 
but springs are painfully lacking now. Once 
they were clean; that was “lang syne,” for 
hordes of Shantung coolies have driven and 
roosted in them since. Once they were drawn 
by well-fed, well-groomed horses; now sorry 
jades, fed on “kaoliang” stalks and bad straw, 
drag them wearily along. 
There, then, the carriage stood, and, prefer¬ 
ring the evils we knew not to those we knew, 
in other words, a doubtful drive to a certainly 
dusty tramp, into it we jumped without delay, 
and by its aid eventually we reached our desti¬ 
nation. The drive was long and bone-breaking. 
The road, if, indeed, it was a road, ran up hill 
and down like a switchback railway, a switch- 
back punctured at irregular intervals with 
sharp and sudden drops of alarming depth. This 
was where the lumbering country carts had 
worn the thin upper stratum of soil down to 
the bed rock. The shock of. the drops was 
broken somewhat owing to the fact that in¬ 
variably there lay below a deep pocket of dust. 
Into this we fell, and immediately, as though a 
shell had burst, a dense cloud rose, engulfing 
carriage, horses, and all. Along the level 
stretches of the road things were little better, 
for the dust lay inches deep everywhere, and 
our sorry nags, too tired and ill-fed to lift their 
feet, simply ploughed through it. Through the 
veil we caught occasional glimpses of the land¬ 
scape—Chinese mud hovels, mangy dogs, un¬ 
washed, half naked children, and gaunt black 
pigs wallowing in mud, or scampering with the 
speed of deer across the brown stubbles. It 
was, indeed a long ride to Ta-shan, and joy and 
relief were ours when at last we emerged on the 
river bed itself, stony, but at least free of dust. 
With a shout our driver reined up. We 
alighted, and picked up our guns, then, bidding 
him await our return, walked in the direction 
of a little marsh, which lay invitingly a few 
hundred yards further on. Very pleasant it 
looked in the still afternoon, with the sun shin¬ 
ing on the pools and the luslr green grass. 
With feelings' of pleasurable anticipation, we 
thought of the toll levied from it on previous 
occasions; we reckoned on finding among its 
tussocks from eight to a dozen snipe, with luck 
perhaps even more. Alas for the vanity of 
human hopes! Only four birds were there, and 
in ten minutes all four were hanging from the 
game carrier. Not merely was it a poor be¬ 
ginning, it was likewise an evil omen for our 
prospects elsewhere, since experience had 
taught us that this was the only snipe ground in 
the district, and that from the tiny streams 
crawling through the mud and the bent grass we 
could hope, even with good luck, to glean no 
more than three or four birds. With disap¬ 
pointment, therefore, we turned our backs on 
what had been our chief hope, and plowed off 
slowly through the mud. Our fears were not 
vain. An hour’s toil brought for sole reward 
two snipe. There were no more. Six birds to two 
guns for an afternoon’s shooting! It was dis¬ 
gusting. And the pity of it was that no other 
place offered in which we might retrieve our 
fortunes. Laothotan, another favorite resort, 
was at least five miles away; the upper part of 
the Ta-shan River bed contained only stones. 
It was hopeless; there was nothing for it but 
to go home. Thus, we grumbled as we cast 
our eyes around. Suddenly and simultaneously 
they fell on the hill of Ta-shan opposite. Its 
top was bare as a billiard ball; nothing was to 
be gained by climbing up there. But about the 
base were several deep gullies thickly covered 
with trees, the only semblance of a wood for 
miles around. If there were pigeons in the 
neighborhood we should certainly find them 
there. We might even put up a stray wood¬ 
cock .though this was doubtful, because Dalny, 
with its myriad sportsmen, was too close at 
hand. In any case, the wood was worth explor¬ 
ing, and forthwith we started to explore it. 
Entering the first gully, we passed immediately 
out of the hot sunlight into the dark, cool 
shadow of a grove of small firs, and simultane¬ 
ously there was a wild flutter of wings, and 
away into the gloom scurried a bird. Bang! 
went a gun, and down came a small brown ob¬ 
ject. We both rushed forward to pick it up. 
It was a little owl. We looked sheepishly at 
one another, then burst out laughing. There 
was really some excuse in the half-light for 
mistaking an owl for a woodcock. On we went 
again, owl after owl fluttering ahead of us, but 
never a woodcock. The gully was rapidly be- 
becoming steeper; it was hot work toiling 
through the undergrowth. At last, perspiring 
and breathless, we reached the top and open 
ground. A hundred and fifty yards higher up 
the hillside stood five or six tall firs; above them 
the bare rock soared into the sky. We sat on 
the grass to bemoan our evil fortune, and 
three pigeons at the same moment floated into 
sight and settled among those trees. My com¬ 
panion looked at them and sighed. “A stern 
chase is a long chase, particularly after a 
pigeon,” quoth he. as I snatched up my gun 
and hurried off. He was right. The pigeon 
is a bird gifted with disagreeably acute powers 
of vision; it is likewise of an eminently suspi¬ 
cious disposition. These were no exception to 
the rule. They rose before I had gone 30 
yards, and drifted higher up the hill, alighting 
finally on a bare rock, where they could easily 
be seen by their enemy, and, unfortunately, 
could equally easily see him. Nevertheless, a 
mean bag being an excellent incentive to effort, 
I panted after them, hoping against the hope¬ 
less that they might be foolish enough to allow 
me to come within range. With eyes glued on 
the birds, I pressed forward, when b-r-r-r-t, 
right under my feet, rose a brown bird. “An¬ 
other owl!” thought I, and would not be drawn. 
But in the nick of time I discovered my mis¬ 
take. This was no owl, but a woodcock very 
much alive. He was lifting to drop over a dip 
in the hill when I discovered my mistake. 
Hurriedly raising the gun to my shoulder, I 
fired, and, as the faint puff of smoke drifted 
away, an instantaneous impression was photo¬ 
graphed on my brain of a bird disappearing at 
an extraordinary acute angle. I could not say 
he was hit, yet the final angle of his drop was so 
different from the initial that I felt certain I 
had not missed. In the meanwhile L. came 
hurrying up; he, too, had noticed the strange 
way in which the bird had dropped out of sight, 
and agreed with me that it must certainly be hit. 
Away we ran to the spot where it had vanished. 
Nothing was to be seen, though we searched 
high and low among the grass and bushes. A 
quarter of an hour passed in a fruitless hunt. 
Then, a few yards ahead of us, a cock rose with¬ 
out warning sound, and with a dip of a wing 
was out of sight behind a tree. “That,” ex¬ 
claimed L., “must be your bird!” Hardly had 
he said this when he stooped clown and picked 
out of a tuft of grass my woodcock. Our 
drooping spirits thus raised, we pressed on after 
the second bird, hoping to put him up again; 
but that afternoon we were not fated to succeed, 
for, shout and beat the bushes as we would, he 
refused to be dislodged. Reluctantly we at last 
