The only animal which it is forbidden to kill is the falcon, whose life is protected by stringent laws. From the most ancient times this bird of the golden wing has been held in high honor. The hunting-grounds are almost entirely among the mountains, as the valleys are too densely occupied with rice and millet fields and cultivated soil, to allow game to exist or be hunted. The chief weapon used is the flint-lock, imported from Japan. With this a single hunter will attack the huge game, although the animal, when not immediately killed, leaps right upon his enemy and easily makes him his prey. When a tiger has caused great ravages in a district, the local magistrate calls together all the professional hunters and organizes a hunt in the mountains. In such cases, the chase is usually, and of intent, without results; for the skin is the property of the government, and the official always looks out for himself, coming in first for the spoils. Hence it is that a government hunt is usually a farce. Most of the tiger-hunters prefer to meet the royal game alone, for then the prized skin, which they sell secretly, is theirs. They eat the meat, and the bones stripped and boiled make various medicines. The number of human lives lost, and the value of property destroyed by their ravages, is so great as at times to depopulate certain districts. A hungry tiger will often penetrate a village in which the houses are well secured, and will prowl around a hovel or ill-secured dwelling, during several entire nights. If hunger presses he will not raise the siege until he leaps upon the thatched roof. Through the hole thus made by tearing through, he bounds upon the terrified household. In this case a hand-to-claw fight ensues, in which the tiger is killed or comes off victorious after glutting himself upon one or more human victims. Rarely, however, need this king of Corean beasts resort to this expedient, for such is the carelessness of the villagers that in spite of the man-eater’s presence in their neighborhood, they habitually sleep during the summer with the doors of their houses wide open, and oftentimes even in the sheds in the open fields without dreaming of taking the precaution to light a fire.