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Updated: May 24, 2025
It is too dry for small mammals and the mountain slopes are so precipitous, thinly forested, and generally undesirable, that, except for gorals, no other large game would live there. The bird life is decidedly uninteresting. There are no cranes or sheldrakes and, except for a few flocks of mallards which feed in the rice fields, we saw no other ducks or geese.
His right horn was nine and three-quarters inches in length and five and three-quarters inches in circumference at the base and the effectiveness with which he had used his horns against the dogs demonstrated that they were by no means only for ornaments. In the next chapter the habits and relationships of the gorals and serows will be considered more fully.
The longest horns in the series which we received measured six inches in length and three and three-quarters inches in circumference at the base. Like the serows, gorals are confined to Asia and are found in northern India, Burma, and China, and northwards through Korea and southern Manchuria.
We never could be sure that there were no gorals on a mountainside, for they were adepts at hiding, and made use of a bunch of grass or the smallest crevice in a rock to conceal themselves, and did it so completely that they seemed to have vanished from the earth. Like all sheep and goats, they could climb about where it seemed impossible for any animal to move.
In the afternoon we shifted camp to a beautiful little grove on the opposite side of the river behind the hunting grounds. Heller, instead of going over with the caravan, went back along the rim of the gorge in the pine forest where he could look across the river to the hill on which we had hunted in the morning. With his field glasses he discovered five gorals in an open meadow, and opened fire.
Gorals, sika, and roebuck are by no means the only big game animals in the Tung Ling. Bears and leopards are not uncommon, and occasionally a tiger is killed by the natives. Among other species is a huge flying squirrel, nearly three feet long, badgers, and chipmunks, a beautiful squirrel with tufted ears which is almost black in summer and now is very rare, and dozens of small animals.
I had reached an impassable precipice and was returning across a steep slope when seven gorals jumped out of the grass where they had been lying asleep. I was in a thick grove of pine trees and fired twice in quick succession as the animals appeared through the branches, but missed both times. I ran out from the trees but the gorals were then nearly two hundred yards away.
The natives brought in three bats which we had not previously seen and began a thriving business in toads and frogs with now and then a snake. The temple was an excellent place for small mammals but it was evident that we would have to move high up on the slopes of the mountain if gorals and other big game were to be obtained.
Moreover, we had an opportunity to learn something about the habits of the animals for we could watch them with glasses from the opposite side of the river when they were quite unconscious of our presence. There was only one day of our stay at Hui-yao that we did not bring in one or more gorals and even after we had obtained an unrivaled series, dozens were left.
It was long shooting but the animals did not know which way to run, and he killed three of the herd before they disappeared. Our first day had, therefore, netted us one deer and four gorals which was better than at any other camp we had had in China.
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