THE MANCHURIAN TIGER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 445, 6 March 1912, Page 7

THE MANCHURIAN TIGER.

DIFFICULT TO SHOOT—HELD IN AWE AND VENERATION BY NATIVES.

The long-haired tiger is foimc throughout Manchuria wherever there is hilly country, but I never heard o them being found on the plains They are extremely difficult to bag. and are by no means numerous. Tin only time when it would be possible to systematically hunt them woulc be in the winter when the snow if on the ground ; the months of Jan uary and February would be the best I hunted in Manchuria in Octobe] and November, and although I saM a good deal of spoor, I never saw oi heard a tiger, or even heard of one having been seen in the neighbourhood.

A Chinese farmer told me that during, an experience extending over forty years he had only twice seen j tiger,; this man was a keen hunter and did not confine himself to one district, so .that tigers must be vers scarce. Before the snow falls there is really no method that one can adopt for tiger-hunting. The natives bold the tiger in a certain amount of veneration and awe, and would lot, I fancy, be willing to impart any information even if they had it. [ tried leaving out'kills, but met with no success. Any attempt at 3eating the thickets and long grass would be quite out of the question, as it would be impossible to get the beaters, and the chance of coming unexpectedly on a tiger is verv small. A few tigers are, however, trapped and shot every winter by native nun;ers, and the procedure seems to be is follows :—Whenever fresh tiger tracks are seen in the snow they are .ollowed up by two or three men, and if they are discovered early ir the day and the sun be shining the tiger is often found lying asleej among the rocks on the crest of a ridge. If he be found in this waj the hunters creep up silently, an:l all fire at the animal together, as no Chinaman would venture to! tackle a tiger single-handed. If, however, the spoor is not seen till late in the lay, and if the weather is very :loudy, the hunters content themselves with watching at some point where the tiger has passed, as they say. it always comes back on its tracks, and they may be able to get a shot as it passes, or if it does so in the night they can follow it up the next.day. I was unable to verify this statement, as although I did once find tracks in the snow, they were soon obliterated by fresh snow falling. The winters in Manchuria are verj severe, and tents could not possiblj be used ; one would have to live ir one of the sable trappers' huts that are scattered through the forest. Tigers do occur in Corea, at any rate in the north, but from what I have heard the conditions there are sven more unfavourable than in Manchuria, and the country has been in a very unsettled state since the Japanese occupation. In addition to tiger, the following game may be found in Manchuria—Bear (black and brown), wapiti, Sika deer (twe species), roedeer, serow, wild pig, leopard, and .lynx—all, however, very scarce and hard to bag, with the exception of roedeer and pig.—"Field."