There is fair shooting all the way up the Mowsan Creek from where it enters the Kintang Creek. The best known place on this waterway is Shilijow (), at the junction of the Mowsan (#) and Poee Creeks. Turning in westwards towards the hills is a fine lay of country on the left hand, requiring at least four days for a conscientious workman. Poee is about 20 li north-west of Shilijow, and very good sport is to be had on the right bank, but penetration into the country northward is stopped by shallow water and enormous woodlands.

Returning to Kintang, and quitting it at the north gate, a journey of 47 li brings one to Tayinjow. Here you may make a northern cast up what is called the Tanyang Creek. There is good shooting on both banks, but it is not worth while going far up this creek, as it early passes through little else but paddy-fields, which in winter time are too bare to afford shelter or food for any kind of game. Tayinjow (B), Tasijow(), and Changzu (), on the main creek, are all capital shooting places in the early season, but, after the 15th December, the natives begin to burn the grass covering the graves and their surroundings, and trim their fields so finely that it is very difficult, except on a very hot day, to get near pheasants at all; and the same denuding of the country renders improbable any successful stalk of teal. But considering the traffic that goes on in all these creeks, it is surprising how tame fowl are, especially after a sharp night's frost.

THE GRAND CANAL: CHINKIANG TO SOOCHOW.

The nature of the shooting in the Chinkiang district has been so well described in the "Notes" on that place, that it will not be necessary to touch on the Grand Canal shooting before coming south to Tanyang (), which is 536 li north-west from Shanghai. This walled city lies at the apex of the creek bearing its name and the Grand Canal. A small shallow lake lies at the south-west of the city, which is covered with wild fowl in hard weather. The surrounding fields are a favourite feeding ground for geese. Coverts may be seen here and there, but it is a weary trudge over hard, bare fields to get from one holding to the other. It is a great cattle-feeding place, and largely supplies the Shanghai market.

LIN-CUR (凌口).

Lincur, 10 li south-east, was once one of the very best places on the canal for a mixed bag, but now is seldom visited. The aspect of the country is very similar to the Tanyang surroundings. In a diary written twenty years ago, when 48 brace of pheasants were shot here in two days, by one gun occurs the remark, "The cover was not good, while the quantity of land under new cultivation was remarkable." What would the writer of those words say to day? Still, pheasants do "affect" the place, although they are very hard to circumvent.

LA-ZUNG ().

24 li further south is Lazung or Leesang, another memento of former years. Early in the season it is a place worth a visit, but not after the end of November. It used to be noted for the size of its copses, but these are visibly diminishing year by year. Twenty years ago people seldom thought of going beyond Lazung.

PEN-NU (奔牛).

The shooting nowadays is confined to the banks of the creek, which are largely grown with buckwheat and cotton. It is a good plan to begin work at Lusiwan, 15 li up the Pennu Creek; try the Manho region, and finish up at Seaouho, close by where the creek, which has wandered some 40 li through an attractive country, joins the Yangtze.

The well known Pintahu Creek leaves the Grand Canal, 2 li south of Pennu, and takes a south-west course to what is known as the Pintahu Barrier. It is the most direct route from the Canal to Kintang.

CHANG-CHOW ( W).

Changchow is a large walled city and a great trading centre, 452 li from Shanghai. A high embanked canal protects it from the north-west to the south-east gates. A fine day's shooting may be had by taking a north-east line, 5 li to the north of the city. Another good day's sport may be found close round the walls, and in the rubble at the south-east of the place; while a third day may be well spent in the large, low bamboo copses which lie rather to the south-west. Both the pheasants and the hares in the neighbourhood of the city and inside its walls grow to great size.

Changchow is a troublesome place to pass, in consequence of the enormous boat traffic, sorely impeded by the great rafts which block up the fairway of the canal; and house-boats have been known to take three days to clear the city.

There are some capital shooting places between Changchow and Wusieh, notably at Chuchee, Wonglingjow(), and Lozar; but many more intermediate stopping-places on both sides of the canal might be made than is usually the case.

WU-SIEH ().

Wusieh, 350 li from Shanghai, is a large walled city, and a great silk centre. The country round about is one immense mulberry plantation, intersected now and again with fine bean-fields which are sure pheasant finds. One has only to walk along the tow-path on the canal bank in the evening to be both an ear- and eye-witness of the great number of pheasants which find a safe asylum in the closely planted mulberry groves. To the north of the city a large canal creek runs up to Kiangying, on the Yangtze, and through a country once reported to be a good sporting one, but one that must now be but rarely visited, as it is seldom or never mentioned.

SHU-SE-QUAI (IH).

Shusequai, 80 li south of Wusieh, and 20 li north of Soochow, is rather a pretty district. To the north-west of the town are some well-wooded hills, from whose tops a good view of the Tahu may be obtained. Shooting hereabouts generally results in a mixed, though probably a small, bagpheasants, deer, hares, often a woodcock or two, and occasionally a wild fowl that has dropped in from the great lake. On the east bank of the canal, from the town to Fungchow, there is capital cover, especially in the well-planted graveyards lying all round the hill on which the big, slanting pagoda stands. Fungchow is the limit of the north-west suburbs of Soochow, and is conspicuous by its large stone barracks.

Soo-CHOWD.

Soochow, the capital of this province of Kiangsu, is situate on the Grand Canal, 252 li in a westnorth-west direction from Shanghai. It is approached on the south-east side by a series of lakes; on the east by a long, straight and wide creek, stone-faced on the north bank, and stone-dyked for some miles on the south. The city walls and the city itself are in a splendid state of preservation; but the immediately outlying country only gives too evident proof of the frightful devastations of the Taiping Rebellion. Very few shooting men think Soochow worth stopping at as a place likely to afford sport, while the number of Shanghai residents who have visited Kiangsu's capital might almost be told on the hands. That there is much worth seeing, Dr. Du Bose's admirable notes show clearly enough.

Soochow must be a great sporting centre, being, as it is, the chief depot for the Shanghai game market. It is said that the country lying to the north of the city up to the Yangtze teems with game, but the tidal creeks quite preclude any but the smallest native craft from exploring them, for at flood tide large boats are unable to pass beneath the bridges, while ebb tide will certainly find them aground.

On the south and south-east of the city are some very snipey-looking patches, while on the west side, in easy sight of the city walls, is as likely a country as one could imagine. Large graves, covered with luxuriant grass; copses of manageable size, ponds and creeks innumerable, and perfect banks for the birds to sun themselves on, combine to suggest that this is a region not to be lightly passed by. In fact, the whole of the country to Mootoo (24 li), and thence to Kwangfoo, is not only very pretty, but is said by the the natives to hold a lot of game. Moreover, being quite close to the Tahu, a cold snap generally brings in the wild fowl from the open waters of the lake. There is a capital daily service of native-owned steamlaunches, which make the run up to Soochow in 12 or 14 hours, towing three or four boats; so that, leaving Shanghai at 6 p.m., one can easily be on one's shooting ground by 9 o'clock next morning, at the very moderate outlay of $9 for the tow.

The foregoing notes have not been intended to do other than give some slight indication of the nature of the country, of the game to be met with, and of the distances well known centres are apart from one another, in the grand tour which it was the ambition of sportsmen to make some few years ago. There are many places mentioned in that round only too well worth shooting at to-day; but they are not so much talked about as they used to be since Wuhu came into fashion half-a-dozen years ago.

CHAPTER IV.

NOTES ON GENERAL SHOOTING.

BY THE EDITOR.

HOOTING may be fairly termed general in the Yangtze Valley, when a not unlucky day's bag might reasonably be found to comprise deer, hare, pheasants, partridge, quail, woodcock, snipe, golden plover, varieties of teal, duck and geese, and, if luck would have it so, a pig-to say nothing of an incidental fox, badger, coon-faced dog, and one or two specimens of the cat kind. In a three weeks' trip in a foot-hill region such an assortment might with every prospect of success be anticipated, especially if the shooter were to put a little more enthusiasm into his work, and not so religiously devote his attention to the ubiquitous pheasant. But it is not of exceptional bags that the following notes treat, but rather of the nature of the shooting which the average man who goes up country is more likely to experience, with a few hints as to how he may best obtain his object.

PHEASANT SHOOTING.

"See from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,

And mounts exulting on truimphant wings!"-POPE.

THE RING-NECKED PHEASANT (Phasianus torquatus).

This is the bird met with everywhere in these provinces, noted for its pluck and cunning, and prized as affording the very cream of sport. Nor does he, apparently, seem to get nigher extirpation because of any increased cultivation of the soil. His safety rather lies in the larger number of cultivated fields than were in existence a few years ago, and which at the close of the year are generally so bare as to afford him the opportunity of seeing his pursuers long before they can get anything like within range of him, and so of completely getting out of harm's way. True, it may be that some erstwhile favourite shooting districts do not to-day possess their former attractions, but the birds, apparently, have only moved on to such places where they meet with less disturbance; in support of which theory may be adduced the fact of the comparatively poor bags made at Wuhu in 1894, and the general statement that many spots there have been shot out" by native gunners; while, on the other hand, birds have been in very full supply in the highly cultivated, but now seldom visited, country lying in the triangle formed by Tanyang, Kintang and Poee. Again, pheasants have been unusually plentiful in the Shanghai radius, and this, despite increasing persecution in season and out of season, the sharp eyes of children in the fields, and a husbandry that is brisk as ever. But from most quarters have come accounts of "lots of birds" this season (1894), which, in a measure, may be accounted for by the unusually long, dry spring and autumn, which has been favourable to the rearing, in many cases, of a

second brood. For this last reason alone, if not for the more generous one of sparing damage to growing crops, it would be as well to delay the commencement of the shooting season until the last week in October, or even later, for, even then, nide after nide of cheepers are very frequently come across of so small growth as not to be worth powder and shot. Again, it is a common experience that it is often-times too hot for a whole day's shooting in October, and that the game does not keep.

On a long trip in winter it is unwise to take the field too early in the day, for not only do gun and dog stand every chance of a good wetting from the melting of the overnight hoar frost, but the birds will be disturbed, and, it may be, betake themselves just beyond the shooter's beat: thus preventing what otherwise might have been a good bag, and, perhaps, of occasioning the return of the gun to the boat disgusted, possibly with the opinion that the country was "shot out."

Pheasants begin to feed about dawn, and, if undisturbed, may prolong their meal until, perhaps, 9 o'clock, when they usually commence to seek their retreats. From 10 to 2 o'clock is the best time to get copse shooting, as it is also to beat the great reed and grass beds. A little later the birds drop into the islets in the lagoons, the sedgy margins of ponds and creeks, and, in fact, wherever water is about. After 4 p.m., in December and January, the birds seem to "affect" the open ploughed grounds, and, as dusk approaches, make for the grass lands.

Early in the season, in October and November, the best sport is to be had in the growing crops of beans, buckwheat, cotton, and wild paddy. Dogs will not be found to be of much use in such covers, especially in the two first-named, as they are so thick and tangled, that the only means of progression is by a succession of high, wild plunges, which not only does a lot of damage to the standing crops, but must throw the poor animals constantly off the scent, and so afford a wounded bird every opportunity of escaping, only to meet a lingering death. But a retrieving dog that will keep to heel until told to "seek dead" will add both birds to the bag and zest to the sport. A more satisfactory way of going about matters is for the guns, one on each side of a field, to keep a few yards ahead of the beaters, who should walk in the furrows where possible, and gently rustle the crop stalks with their bamboos. Nearing the end of the field, the beaters should stop until the guns have had time to get stationed quite at the end. It is marvellous, sometimes, what a number of birds will rise at the bitter end of a well-beaten field. Copses, high reeds, and similar coverts should, when practicable, be beaten down-wind, for the reason that birds usually run down to the warm lee end; but care should be taken to protect any water that may adjoin the cover, as pheasants generally "burst" on the water side. If only two guns are shooting a cover, one should get to the lee end at once, and the other follow as quickly as possible, one on each flank. If three guns are working cover, two might be sent forward before the beaters enter it, and the third gun take, from the most advantageous spots he can, his chance with any game that might double back. What would be worth the attempt would be an organized copse beat for four guns, with a dozen beaters, who would keep in something like line, and a brace of musical spaniels, and the day devoted to this kind of shooting and nothing else. Hen pheasants are particularly fond of the long feathery grass sown in the mulberry groves, and of such standing cotton as is furrowed with beans. But, after all, there is no saying where pheasants may not be found, for they often lie in the most unlikely and unexpected places. The covers round the farm-houses are almost invariable finds, the birds, doubtless, being attracted by the warmth of the situation, the proximity to plentiful food, and the association of their domestic congeners. In the evening birds are out in the open, and only afford the longest of shots. If possible make a wide