Excerpt from With Boat and Gun in the Yangtze Valley One reason why the foreigner does not make to-day the huge bags of yore may possibly be that he does not put in that amount of hard work and enthusiasm which characterized the shooters of days gone by. There is a regrettable apathy born of the luxury inseparable from a shooting trip now-a-days undreamt of in the past. But the most despond'ent of those who bewail that we are fast coming to the end of our shooting tether may take heart of grace from the knowledge that game has been in most abundant supply all the past season, and that prices on the average have seldom been more reasonable. The ground and ying game of this favoured valley is plentiful enough, and good bags will for a long time yet result from assiduous and intelligent work. Places like Wuhu, Tatung and Tungliu, amongst many others, must ever remain sanctuaries until such time as the expenses attendant upon reaching them shall be very considerably lessened, while no amount of legitimate shooting can or will ever make any diminution in the countless numbers Of the migratory birds, be they Wildfowl, woodcocks or snipes, whose close season Nature herself has determined and no mortal can hasten or retard, or set aside. Naturally enough there would be much more shooting in what may be termed the houseboat radius were the municipally called close season for partridges, pheasants and quail not so wilfully and obviously disregarded. There are, unfortunately, people who eat, and who, worse still, glory in eating, game right through the summer, while the mail and coast steamers carry away birds in thousands all the year round. A betterment worth working for would be to get the Chinese Government to make the export of game during certain times of the year punishable by law, and to seek the co-operation of the French and International Municipal Councils and the Agents of the several steam ship lines to carry that law, as far as they were able, into effect. The disease is here we wait for the physician. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Western scientific interest in China focused primarily on natural history. Prominent scholars in Europe as well as Westerners in China, including missionaries, merchants, consular officers, and visiting plant hunters, eagerly investigated the flora and fauna of China. Yet despite the importance and extent of this scientific activity, it has been entirely neglected by historians of science. This book is the first comprehensive study on this topic. In a series of vivid chapters, Fa-ti Fan examines the research of British naturalists in China in relation to the history of natural history, of empire, and of Sino-Western relations. The author gives a panoramic view of how the British naturalists and the Chinese explored, studied, and represented China's natural world in the social and cultural environment of Qing China. Using the example of British naturalists in China, the author argues for reinterpreting the history of natural history, by including neglected historical actors, intellectual traditions, and cultural practices. His approach moves beyond viewing the history of science and empire within European history and considers the exchange of ideas, aesthetic tastes, material culture, and plants and animals in local and global contexts. This compelling book provides an innovative framework for understanding the formation of scientific practice and knowledge in cultural encounters. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction I. The Port 1. Natural History in a Chinese Entrepà ́t 2. Art, Commerce, and Natural History II. The Land 3. Science and Informal Empire 4. Sinology and Natural History 5. Travel and Fieldwork in the Interior Epilogue Appendix: Selected Biographical Notes Abbreviations Notes Index Fa-ti Fan's study of the encounter between the British culture of the naturalist and the Chinese culture of the Qing is both a delight and a revelation. The topic has scarcely been addressed by historians of science, and this work fills important gaps in our knowledge of British scientific practice in a noncolonial context and of Chinese reactions to Western science in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In addition to the culture of Victorian naturalists and Sinology, Fan shows an admirable grasp of visual representation in science, Chinese taxonomic schemes, Chinese export art, British imperial scholarship, and journeys of exploration. His treatment of the China trade and descriptions of Chinese markets and nurseries are especially welcome. I learned a great deal, and I strongly recommend this book. --Philip Rehbock, author of Philosophical Naturalists: Themes in Early Nineteenth-Century British Biology By focusing on the experiences of British naturalists in China during a time when it was gradually being opened up to foreign influences, Fan makes at least two important contributions to history of science: He gives us an authoritative study of British naturalists in China (as far as I know the only one of its kind), and he forces us to rethink some of our categories for doing history of science, including how we conceive of the relationship between science and imperialism, and between Western naturalist and native. Fan's scholarship is meticulous, with careful attention to detail, and his prose is clear, controlled, and succinct. --Bernard Lightman, editor of Victorian Science in Context

Unearths the forgotten history of a catastrophic flood, examining its profound impact upon the environment and society of modern China.