Chinese officials are fond of keeping in their gardens a type of long-legged fowl the exact foreign name of which I do not know. They are generally about 40-in, in height, of phenomenal length of leg and an astonishingly light body. Its breadth of wing is four or five feet but the entire weight of the bird is probably less than three pounds.
The birds are not tamed but they do not fly away although they are in an open yard. The explanation is quite simple but one would hardly have thought it effective. These tall birds generally must. take three or four hops before they can rise from the ground and their first flappings do not take them higher than five feet. A wall of that height. will effectually imprison them if the® enclosure is less than ten or a dozen yards in breadth or length. They' simply cannot get up enough speed to make a start in such narrow surroundings.
Some time ago I saw a coolie ug a load of these birds which sat in his basket with remarkable quiet. Investigation revealed that he used a simple but effective device. With a light thread he had sewed up their eyes, a single stitch being sufficient and' of so slight 1 nature that even the S.P.C.A. could have had no complaint to make Bird Trapping in North Ki From earliest boyhood the writer has been interested in every methoul of bringing wild creatures into captivity and his earliest recollections are of creeping out with a spoonful of salt to test out the truth of the old adage "that if you put salt on a bird's tail you can catch him," Needless to tell the results or relate my crestfallen condition on learning the catch in that ancient proverb, but it seems simple enough judging by the ease with which my Chinese friends succeed in trapping the game that so successfully evades my gun.-
The equipment for trapping quails is unbelievably simple and small. It consists of an open net not more than five by seven fect: wide and of very light cords, not much heavier than heavy sewing thread. The hunters generally go in pairs and drag this net at the end of a light rope attached to each of the upper corners and this rope is not more than a few feet long. Their sharp eyes detect their quarry running or sitting on the ground and their aim is so to manipulate the net that the bird will fly into it. King Solomon had never seen Chinese hunters in action when he said "Surely the net is spread in vain in the sight of any bird" for there is no effort at concealment. Each hunter carries in his hand a small stone or clod of earth. As- they see their bird they mani-plate their movements so it will he roughly in the middle of their net and as they advance they throw their missile so that it will strike on the far side of the bird. The
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.