It is said that in the little kingdom of Denmark the citizens have a winter sport which consists in a general and organized hunt for hares on the part of all the male population of a very extended territory, starting from a given point and working in a definite direction, under precise and carefully observed rules. At the close of the hunt there is a great feast to which all are welcomed, and the whole performance is one to which there is much anxious looking forward on the part of the young and vigorous country-folk. It is strange to meet with a custom of the same kind in China, but there is an ancient district in Shan-tung, known as P'ing-yüen, or Level-plains, where the Danish custom flourishes in full force, but minus the very important concluding feast. For where is the Chinese who would have the courage or indeed the means to welcome the countless swarms of his country-side to enjoy the pleasure of eating at somebody else's expense? The whole arrangement of this combination hunt is in the hands of a few impecunious fellows who have the right of "protecting" merchants at the great fairs from imposition by other rascals, by means of levying a prophylactic black-mail of their own on a certain day at the principal market of the region. A man who has no single spear of hair on his head passes up and down the crowded lanes of the market, and calls out that on such and such a day there will be an attack by all the people of the "north district" on the hares. This notice is repeated with varied iteration, until the word is comprehended by all those within hearing, each one goes home and tells the rest of the village, and on the set day all are ready for the fray. The reason for having the notice circulated by a bald man exclusively is the eminently Chinese one that in the Mandarin dialect the word for Bald--T'u--and that for Hare are identical in sound. This circumstance once led to a very singular error on the part of a bright little child of certain foreigners living in Shan-tung. One of the employees of the establishment had been off somewhere on a donkey, and while he was leading it homeward the beast broke away and galloped off. A lad who was cutting grass in the neighbourhood saw the fleeing animal, rushed out and caught it, holding it till the rider came up. On their reaching home the dramatic story was told in the hearing of the lad, and the capture of the donkey was accredited to a little "T'u-tzŭ" or "Bald-boy." The foreign child heard the thrilling narrative which he duly retailed at the parental dinner-table, only he translated the name "T'u-tzŭ" as Hare, the only kind of t'u-tzŭ of which he had ever heard!