THE SCANDINAVIAN ELK
BY SIR HENRY POTTINGER, BART.
The chase of the elk, one of the few grand wild sports still to
be found in Europe, was thought worthy of mention by very old and
distinguished writers, but their remarks on the subject are perhaps not
likely to be of much practical value to the modern sportsman. The great
Cæsar is our authority for the fact that the elk, having no joints
to its legs and being therefore unable to lie down, is compelled to
take its rest by leaning against a tree. The cunning hunter, continues
the noble Roman, takes advantage of this peculiarity, and by sawing
most of the trees in a wood frequented by the ponderous beast nearly
through, brings about its downfall, when, from inability to rise, it
becomes an easy victim. I have not yet tried this method of hunting,
which is corroborated by Pliny, when writing of the elk ‘in Scandinavia
insula.’ The celebrated naturalist also observes that, owing to the
monstrous protrusion of its upper lip, the animal is compelled to feed
backwards. Other ancient writers concur in the statement that the elk
when pursued is liable to epileptic fits, but that he can occasionally
relieve himself from the malady by opening a vein in his ear with his
hind foot. I am inclined to believe, having never myself seen an elk
in a fit, that now-a-days the remedy is invariably successful; but I
find that the author of a small French book, entitled _Nouveau voyage
vers le Septentrion_, and published in 1708, mentions that whilst
hunting near Christiania in the company of a Norwegian nobleman, he
was fortunate enough to be an eye-witness of the death of the only
two elk they found, both of which succumbed, after a severe run, to
sudden epileptic attacks, otherwise they would certainly never have
been overtaken! He records, moreover, his scornful rejection of one of
the elk’s feet, kindly offered by his host as a sovereign preservative
against this terrible ‘falling sickness,’ on the not unreasonable
ground that the pretended virtue of the foot had been of little use to
its original owner.
We thus see that from the earliest times some degree of mystery and
special interest has been attached to the habits and chase of the elk,
whose obscure existence in the depth of Northern forests, and gigantic
uncouthness of appearance, amounting almost to deformity, still seem
to indicate him as a survivor from the remote age of antediluvian or
primæval monsters.
Owing to the wise protective enactments of the Government, extending
over more than half a century, the Scandinavian elk, which although
formerly abundant was at one time almost in danger of extinction,
has of late years again spread rapidly over a great part of Norway
and Sweden, wherever the country is sufficiently wild and wooded to
suit its habits. It is indeed found even within a comparatively short
distance of the capitals, some of the best elk-ground in Norway being
accessible by a short railway or road journey from Christiania; but
this is principally in the hands of gentlemen resident in that city, by
whom the game in the adjacent forests is often as strictly preserved
as that in our coverts at home. It appears, however, that the elk is
still almost unknown in the extreme north--that is, within the Arctic
Circle. Its range throughout the whole Scandinavian Peninsula, with
the exception of rare stragglers, may be fairly reckoned as lying
between 57° and 66° 30 N. By the published returns of the ‘Norsk Jæger
og Fisker Forening,’ we learn that in 1889, which may be accepted as
an average year, elk were killed in eleven out of the eighteen amts or
provinces of Norway. North Trondhjem, which includes the wild regions
round Stordal, Værdal, Inderöen, and Namdal, was easily first in its
return of 303 elk, of which 207 were bulls and 96 cows. Next, but a
long way behind, came Akershus (containing the capital, Christiania)
with 71 bulls and 47 cows, 118 in all; Hedemarken was third with 109
elk; Christian fourth with 82; Buskerud fifth with 77, and South
Trondhjem sixth with 74. The long stretch of Nordland returned only 9
kills; and Finmarken, the Arctic province, not a single one. Altogether
about 850 elk on the average are killed yearly in Norway, and in Sweden
rather more than double the number. It must be remembered, however,
that on the vast estates belonging to the great landowners in the south
and centre of the latter country elk are preserved as strictly as foxes
or pheasants are in England, and that, at the same time, there is no
legal restriction to prevent the sportsman killing during the season as
many elk, including calves, as he can, upon any property however small;
whereas in Norway he is limited, under penalty of a heavy fine, to one
deer for each registered or ‘matriculated’ division of the land, and
the murder of calves is altogether forbidden.
The period during which it is legal to kill elk in Norway is nominally
from August 1 to September 31, but this general law is subject to
much local modification. Thus, in Nordland the full time of three
months is still granted; in North Trondhjem it is curtailed to forty
days, from September 1 to October 10; whilst in South Trondhjem its
duration is for the month of September only. As by the watchful care of
the authorities the close-time for any game in any given district of
Scandinavia is always liable to extension, it is as well for intending
lessees of sporting rights to ascertain exactly the terms of the local
enactments, and, if possible, the probabilities of fresh legislation.
Some years ago I took a large tract of forest in the province of
Jemtland, in Sweden, and had just succeeded, after the first season,
in making my quarters fairly comfortable, when the Government passed
a law forbidding any elk to be killed in that province for three
years. Unluckily the local authorities neglected to enforce at the same
time proper supervision in the matter of poaching. A Swede, who acted
as hunter for me some years later, coolly confessed that he and his
comrades had never had such good sport as during that long close-time.
Whilst honest law-abiding men stayed at home and the officials pocketed
their salaries and did nothing, the poacher gangs had the immense
forest tracts all to themselves, and with the connivance of some of
the farmers, who of course had their share of the spoil, were easily
able to escape detection. The elk season in Sweden would appear to be
subject to local variations similar to those in Norway; in the province
of Jemtland it is confined to the month of September only.
Knowing nothing of the American moose, except from reading or hearsay,
I am scarcely equal to drawing any comparison between it and the
Scandinavian elk. It is, I understand, generally agreed that while
the two animals are about equal in bulk, the moose, in the matter of
horns at least, has the advantage--_ceteris paribus_--of its European
congener. Nevertheless, the latter, when it has attained its full
honours, is capable of furnishing the sportsman with a trophy of which
he may well be proud.
Whether, as some experienced hunters maintain, the age of an elk can be
fairly determined by the number of points on its antlers, or whether,
as others declare, there is absolutely no test by which it can be
approximately guessed, beyond the fact that the ruggedness and spread
of the coronet and the thickening of the base of the horns and tines
are sure indications of old age, it is not for me, in the teeth of
such conflicting opinions, to decide, although I have for some years
taken especial pains to collect data and ideas on this very obscure
subject. But I would suggest, with all due respect to the theories of
others, that nature is seldom purely capricious, and that, taking as
a basis the normal development of the horns during the first two or
three years, which is, as a rule, regular and easily observable, and
regarding the large number of elk with antlers of almost precisely
the same size and number of points that are annually killed, there
does appear to be some method in the growth of the latter, and that
it does seem only reasonable that some accuracy of calculation may be
attained by those who have constant opportunities, if they will but
take the trouble, of verifying it. I fancy that it is only of late
years and since a small band of English sportsmen has devoted itself
to the regular annual pursuit of the elk in Scandinavia, that the
native hunter, the Norwegian at least, has been induced by example
to exhibit any interest in the question of horns or to regard them
as worthy of special attention: the size of the body and the amount
of meat have always been to him of far greater importance. To this
day I occasionally hear Scandinavian Nimrods express much incredulous
astonishment at the fact that an Englishman has been known to spare
a well-grown bull with an insignificant trophy, or a big cow. Quite
recently, however, Norway has been invaded by a large number of German
sportsmen also bent on the pursuit of the elk, and from all accounts
these gentlemen, keen and energetic as they all undoubtedly are, are
not, as a rule, prone to err on the side of declining chances. May I
then, without polemical design, suggest it as probable that a bull
elk attains its prime between the ages of seven and twelve years,
when, in the natural course of events, the antlers will have from
fourteen to twenty-four points or thereabouts, and that to this general
computation there must be, from various causes, many exceptions? It
is not too common to find the horns a perfect pair, although they may
be symmetrical in their general curves and sweep; one has frequently
a point or two more than its fellow. I have seen a single fine very
massive head that had no palmation whatever, and on each antler only
four tines, but these were of great length and thickness, and strongly
resembled on a smaller scale those of the wapiti. The owner of another
remarkable head, which I have not seen, describes it as being very
powerful, with twenty-three points in all, in _double_ rows on each
horn. I find that among native hunters the belief is prevalent that
there are two kinds of elk, the one being less massive in build than
the other, of lighter colour, and with invariably less palmation; but I
take it that such variation is simply due to local influences, and is
common to many animals, cornigerous and otherwise.
Be all this as it may, we have at least the fact that the horns of all
the elk in Scandinavia do run more or less to points, and that the
majority killed have less than eighteen, which number, my experience
leads me to believe, English sportsmen, whatever may be their opinions
as to growth and age, practically regard much in the light of a
‘royal head’ amongst elk, while with any greater number it might be
analogously classed as ‘imperial,’ although neither these nor any
other terms that I know of are in use. A head with twelve or fourteen
points is reckoned a decent trophy. I have never myself seen one
preserved with more than twenty-six, and this was inferior in sweep
and general measurements to some which had fewer; on the best which
has fallen to my own rifle I count twenty-three. It will be understood
that in reckoning points I recognise the claim of every distinct and
undeniable excrescence, of whatever size. By the kindness of Colonel C.
S. Walker, of Tykillen, Wexford--a keen and successful hunter in India
and elsewhere, and my predecessor in the elk forest which I now hold in
Norway--I have been supplied with excellent and instructive photographs
of some of the best heads he obtained during his four Scandinavian
seasons, which have been admirably set up by Keilick, of 59 Edgware
Road. They are superior to those in my own possession, and as good
all round as any that I have myself seen; but a few have, I believe,
been obtained of slightly larger dimensions by English sportsmen in
Norway. No. 1 is that of a bull in his prime, with eleven points on
each antler. No. 2, that of an old bull described as having light grey
long curly hair on his brow and crest, which gave him a very venerable
appearance; thirteen points on one horn and eleven on the other. Nos.
3 and 4 are different views of the finest specimen, with twelve points
on either side and great development of palmation--a bull also in
his prime with no signs of age. The measurements of the latter head
are as follows: Height of horns from tip of central brow point to tip
of highest back point, 3 ft. 1 in.; height of palmation, exclusive of
said points, 2 ft. 6¼ ins., and 2 ft. 5 ins.; curve of inner edge of
horns from coronet to tip of inside back points, 2 ft. ½ ins.; width
of palmation, centre of horns, 11½ ins. and 10¾ ins.; between tips
of inner back points, 1 ft. 11¾ ins.; between inner brow points, 11½
ins.; between tips of fifth points on either side, following curve and
across brow, 4 ft. 5⅞ ins.; the same measurement, taut, 3 ft. 5¾ ins.;
across skull at brow, 7½ ins.; fifth points, right and left, 6¼ ins.
and 7¾ ins.; round coronet, 10¼ ins.; round base of horn, 6⁷⁄₁₀ ins.
Sixteen is the greatest number of points I have ever seen on a single
horn. This was picked up in the forest, freshly shed, in 1888, and
undoubtedly belonged to an old elk of great size which had been known
to haunt the district for some years. It is, however, an inch smaller
all over, except in width of palmation, than the 12-point horns of
which the measurements have been given. I believe that in 1892 I fired
at (in a wood so densely set with stems that I had great difficulty
in finding a passage for my bullet) and slightly wounded this very
elk. Oddly enough he had been wounded in the nose the year before, and
within a short distance of the same spot, by my predecessor in the
shooting, who was also baulked by the dense growth of the pine-trees.
He was by far the largest elk I have ever met with, and my hunter, a
Lapp of great experience, assured me that he had never seen one bigger.
The conformation of his antlers, so far as it was possible to judge in
the obscurity of the wood, was exactly that of the shed horn, the great
palmation with its fringe of closely set spikes being very remarkable;
but to count the number of the latter during such a brief and exciting
interview was impossible. I trust that some time next season I may
be able to study them at my leisure, and to decide whether the horns
have increased since 1888, or begun to deteriorate. It is certain that
with great age, when the vital and generative powers which undoubtedly
nourish their growth are impaired, they do go back, often becoming
comparatively stunted and distorted. Bad wounds and scarcity of food
will produce the same result. The elk sheds its horns during March and
April, and the new growth begins to sprout early in June.
[Illustration: No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, No. 4]
The average bodily measurements of a full-grown Scandinavian elk, let
us say over seven years old, are as follows: Length from tail to crest,
9 ft. 5 ins.; crest to nose, 2 ft. 5 ins.; height at withers, 5 ft. 8
to 9 ins.; at quarters, 5 ft. 5 to 6 ins.; from belly to ground, 3 ft.
4 ins.; greatest girth, 6 ft. 11 ins. to 7 ft.; round thigh, 3 ft.;
round forearm, 1 ft. 11 ins.
The accurate uncleaned weight of so huge an animal it is, of course,
impossible, for obvious reasons, to obtain, but it is reported as
having occasionally exceeded 1,400 lbs. An average deer will yield from
600 to 700 lbs. of good meat, and a heavy haunch turn the scale at 140
lbs.[12] The height of the bull at the shoulders as compared with the
length of his actual body (the two measurements are nearly equal), the
massive shaggy neck (on which, however, there is no very conspicuous
mane), the enormously long head with its bunch of beard, huge hooked
nose and bulbous lip, the rather sloping hind-quarters, and slender
legs terminated by immense hoofs, combine to render him a most awkward
and ungainly animal to look at; but the rapidity of his movements and
his total disregard of the worst obstacles are at times astonishing,
and nothing will strike the sportsman more than the way in which, if
the golden moment for a shot be lost, the great deer will seem to
suddenly and silently melt away like a phantom into the forest.
Another point on which some discussion has arisen is as to what vocal
sounds are produced by the Scandinavian elk of either sex during the
rutting season, and whether such sounds, if any be uttered, are of
habitual occurrence. Personally, during six seasons’ hunting, I have
never heard an elk, either male or female, utter any sound whatever;
but after long and careful inquiry into the subject, which revealed
more antagonism of opinion than even the question of the horns, I have
made out, on the clearest evidence, that the bull during the said
season gives utterance to a kind of cross between a grunt and a snort,
which is often repeated many times in succession, and is audible in
still weather at a considerable distance, such sound being unmistakably
an amorous call. It is known in Scandinavia as the ‘Lokketone,’ or
‘Lokton,’ and may be heard during the day-time. By equally certain
testimony, it is proved that, in moments of rage and defiance, the
bull will also roar or bellow furiously. About the call of the cow
there is no doubt whatever; she can also, on occasion, produce a loud,
harsh roar, intended as an attractive summons to the bull. Colonel
Walker mentions his having for some time watched a cow in the very
act of uttering this call, after the bull had been shot whilst paying
her great attentions. She wholly disregarded the shot herself, and
the approach of the shooter, whom she allowed to come within twenty
yards before she moved quietly off. When about half a mile away she
recommenced her alluring roar, which Colonel Walker describes as ‘like
the noise of a very angry bear when you have him where he cannot escape
you.’ The cow has also, when separated from her calf, a milder call,
nearly similar to that of the domestic animal. The art of calling elk
has, happily, never been practised in Scandinavia, and as all the
hunting takes place during daylight, and as, moreover, the inhabitants
of the interior have a decided objection to being abroad during the
dark hours of either evening or morning, this subject, like that of the
horns, has probably not received from them much attention. You will
find men who have passed all their lives in the wilds of Norway, and
constantly hunted the elk, ready to swear that, with the exception of
the ‘Lokton,’ neither sex utters any cry whatever. It is somewhat hard
to reject altogether the idea that the elk of Scandinavia is, during
the rutting season, habitually more silent than the moose is reported
to be--but here I get out of my depth.
The first signs that the rutting season is beginning usually reveal
themselves about the third week in September, when the hunter will
discover in the forest sundry young fir-trees that have been freshly
barked and cut to pieces by the horns of the bull. This would scarcely
of itself be conclusive evidence, as the bull will occasionally spar
with a tree much earlier in the month, possibly to complete the removal
of the velvet. I have seen the horns of young elk covered with it as
late as the end of the first week. Corroboration will be supplied by
sundry shallow scrapings of the ground, the forerunners of the deeper
pits which the bull scoops out when his frenzy is more advanced. When,
owing to the purpose for which the elk uses them, these pits begin to
be so ammoniacally odoriferous as to become guides to even a human
nose, then it may be accepted as a certainty that a bull accompanied by
a cow is, if not previously disturbed, somewhere in their vicinity.
According to the best authority, the bull only remains with the cow for
about three days, after which she will have nothing more to do with
him, and beats him off, whereupon he resumes his travels in search of
fresh loves. During the whole rutting season, which lasts for about
three weeks or a month, and is therefore included to a great extent
in the present Norwegian elk season, he eats little or nothing except
certain plants of a stimulant character, and becomes, in consequence,
reduced to the worst possible condition. At this time he develops a
very strong but not particularly disagreeable odour, akin to musk, to
such an extent that a hunter might often follow by using his own nose,
without the aid of a dog. All the trees and bushes, and even tall
grasses against which he brushes during his progress through the wood,
are tainted with this peculiar scent. The old bull elks now become very
savage and pugnacious, and, not content with attacking each other, will
occasionally run at any object they see in motion. My Lapp hunter tells
me that when prospecting for elk without a rifle and in the interests
of his late employer, he was several times charged by bulls, and had
to run for his life and conceal himself in a thicket. But on all these
occasions as soon as the elks reached his track and, nosing the ground,
recognised the scent of humanity, they in their turn swung round and
retreated. It would, however, be foolhardy, if unarmed, to stand their
charge, as they might strike the life out of a man with their forefeet,
their most dangerous weapon, before their timidity of or respect for
the human race generally came into play. An English sportsman of my
acquaintance, while returning one evening from an unsuccessful chase,
in crossing a small opening in the forest, was charged by a bull, who
rushed out of the covert and was only checked at thirty yards distance
by a bullet between the eyes.
Both sexes of elk are often seen together by the peasants during the
haymaking season, in the forest and near the mountain dairies, and
small families, consisting of a cow with one or two calves and a single
bull (or possibly a couple), still hold together at the beginning of
the hunting season; but as, at the same time, we constantly find a
certain number of bulls and cows leading solitary lives, or one or two
of the same sex together, the secret of these domestic arrangements is
shrouded in some obscurity, and one can only conclude that, as in the
case of men, there are some male elk who prefer a roving bachelor life,
whilst others have more uxorious and paternal tendencies. I have never
been able to discover that the Scandinavian elk has any prominently
gregarious instincts under ordinary conditions of existence, although
I have heard it stated in Norway that they sometimes unite during the
winter into bands of a dozen or more. In some very highly preserved
districts, such as the royal forests of Sweden, mentioned later, they
are now and then artificially congregated in considerable numbers, and
a Swedish gentleman once told me that on a part of his property, at the
head of the Gulf of Bothnia, there existed on a stretch of land bounded
by two rivers a ‘herd,’ as he termed it, of nearly a hundred elk. But
it appeared that in this district, owing to peculiar circumstances and
local laws, the deer had not been shot for, I think, over twenty years,
and were carefully watched by foresters, so that we have here also
signs of compulsory gregariousness; but it is not safe to be dogmatic
in this direction. What is more to our present purpose is the certain
fact, on which the sportsman may rely, that during the hunting season
he will not be troubled or perplexed by any gregarious tendencies on
the part of the elk, whether because there are not enough of them or
because such is not their habit is of little consequence; he will, I
think, discover that a more unsociable and sporadic race of animals,
averse to neighbours, does not exist on the face of the earth.
In Scandinavia, now that the use of traps, pitfalls and the like is
abolished, there are three legitimate methods of killing elk--namely:
stalking with the ‘bind-hund,’ or, as I may render it in English,
leash-hound; running with the loose hound; and driving. Of these three
methods it may be said that the first is more worthy than the second,
and the second than the third. In Norway, owing to the operation of
the legal enactment ‘one farm one elk,’ driving is practised on so
insignificant a scale as to be scarcely worth noticing. Occasionally,
when elk are known to frequent a precipitous mountain, whence it is
impossible for them to descend except by certain passes where the
guns can be stationed, a few beaters may be employed to move the elk
quietly, with a fair prospect of success; but if it should happen that
two or more of the passes are within the same holding, some care is
necessary to guard against the chance of more elk than the one allowed
being illegally killed. A drive of this kind is in Norway termed a
‘klapjagt,’ from the noise made by the beaters. The term is corrupted
by British sportsmen into ‘slapjack.’ In certain situations where the
ground is favourable, as in a narrow glen or on an isthmus between two
lakes, the single sportsman may attempt something of the same kind by
the aid of his hunter or attendant, who, making a long circuit, comes
upon the elk down wind, and starts them towards the gun in ambush.
Nothing more than the wind of man is necessary to move the elk, and the
more quietly all these driving operations are conducted the better.
The hunter who is wise will always avoid disturbing elk needlessly or
wantonly, as they quickly become suspicious of danger, and are apt
to travel long distances. In Sweden elk driving has been practised
for a great number of years, and sometimes on an immense scale. In
Lloyd’s works, ‘Field Sports of the North of Europe,’ and ‘Scandinavian
Adventures,’ will be found a detailed account of some of the great
‘Dref- and Knäptskalls,’ arranged in former days by the Master of the
Hunt for the delectation of royalty, by which many elk, bears, and
other animals were killed. But, as regards this branch of our subject,
it will be sufficient to notice very briefly two great drives which
have taken place in quite recent times in one of the royal forests near
the town of Wenersborg and the mountains of Hunneberg and Halleberg,
at the southern extremity of Lake Wenern. Both these great functions
were arranged for weeks beforehand, and many hundred beaters employed
in sweeping with a gigantic cordon, which was never relaxed by day
or night, an enormous extent of forest, and moving the elk gradually
to the stations of the guns. The first ‘skall’ took place during the
visit of the Prince of Wales to Sweden in 1885, when forty-nine elk
were killed during the day; the second, in September, 1888, when, so
completely had the stock recovered from the previous slaughter, that
in three drives, also on the same day, there were respectively slain
twenty-four, twenty-eight (in this case bulls only), and fourteen
elk--a total of sixty-six. Great damage had been done by the deer to
the young Scotch firs in the forest, which is some excuse for such a
massacre.
By the Norwegian law, elk-hunting with the loose dog is in reality
forbidden; at the same time, in several districts it is practised to
a considerable extent, and with impunity. But it is in Sweden that
this style of chase is most in vogue. To begin with, the physical
geography of that country lends itself to the sport. The Swedish forest
is for the most part of a rolling character, swelling and sinking
into hill and dale of respectively moderate elevation and depth, and
spreading out into huge morasses and tracts of natural upland meadow
with a degree of uniformity that produces tame and somewhat monotonous
scenery. Sweden lacks the deep, gloomy gorges, the precipitous or
terraced mountain-faces, the boulder-strewn and birch-clad dells of the
higher fjeld, and the barren, stony summits which are characteristic
of Norway, and amongst which, if a courageous and persevering hound be
loosed at elk, there is great danger of his being quickly and entirely
lost to sight and hearing. It is said that an elk can go wherever
a man can, and, although this may be somewhat of an exaggeration,
inasmuch as no elk could climb the Matterhorn, it is nevertheless
astonishing what tremendous ascents and descents his long legs can
accomplish under pressure, and with what rapidity he will travel for
miles over the fjeld, from valley to valley, so that the most active
followers of the loose dog would in such a chase be nowhere.
The elk hound belongs to the breed used by the Esquimaux, a small
species of which is known in England under the name of ‘Spitz.’ There
are two types of this dog, the one being smaller, lighter limbed,
and more finely coated than the other; but they have in common the
characteristics of thick hair with an undergrowth of wool, sharp noses
and ears, and a bushy, tightly-curled tail, like the inner whorls
of a fossil ammonite. Their colour ranges through various shades of
grey, brindled and foxy, is occasionally pure black or white, or
a mixture of the two. A well-bred and thoroughly well-trained elk
hound is a valuable animal and hard to procure: 25_l._ to 30_l._--a
large sum in Scandinavia--or even more, is not too high a price for
a perfect animal, when we consider how much is required of him, how
greatly the enjoyment and success of the sportsman depend upon his
experience, sagacity, nose, speed and courage, and how considerable
is the market value of each animal that by his aid falls to the rifle
of the professional hunter: head, hide and meat included, it may be
set at from 6_l._ to 10_l._ But the leash-hound, to be used only as
a stalking dog, seldom commands anything like so high a price, the
Scandinavian natives being, as a rule, singularly ignorant or impatient
of this style of pursuit. The best leash-hounds are those which are
never loosed. This will be easily understood when we reflect that in
stalking a thoroughly good dog will be mute under all circumstances,
and always temperate, never straining violently at the leader, even
when most eager and excited by the proximity of the elk: whereas it is
essential that the loose dog should give tongue freely when he finds,
overtakes, or bays the deer, in order that the sound may serve as a
guide to the shooter. With the constant expectation of being loosed, he
can hardly be expected to restrain his emotions when his instinct, or
possibly eyesight, tells him that the glorious moment of freedom is, or
ought to be, at hand. Few, if any, dogs can play both _rôles_ equally
well; it will be found that a hound accustomed to being loosed will,
in stalking, invariably strain impetuously at the leader, and that it
is not safe to let him view the elk, as he will in all probability
whine or bark: on the other hand, one that is rarely slipped will only
follow for a few hundred yards, and seldom or never stop a deer. I
do not deny that good useful dogs may now and then be found who will
acquit themselves tolerably in either character, but I am speaking only
of the best of each class. Thoroughly broken and trustworthy dogs are
sometimes allowed to range the forest from the first, but as a rule the
hound is never slipped until, either from his conduct, or from his own
observation of signs,[13] the hunter becomes certain that the elk is
not far off, or until he despairs altogether of finding one, and trusts
to the dog as a last chance. This is but a too common ending to a day
when the forest tract is large and fresh signs of elk not discoverable.
A brace of dogs are frequently allowed to run at the same time, but it
is a safe maxim that when a single dog notifies that he has found and
bayed the elk, a second should not be loosed, as his sudden appearance
on the scene will often start the deer off and render him more
difficult to stop.
In searching for elk with the dog still in hand the hunter works
slowly up and across wind, utilising his knowledge of country to the
utmost advantage. The dog at such a time--and this applies equally
to both styles of hunting--precedes him at a distance of five or six
feet, being restrained by a leader or leash, which is fastened to
the harness. The best form of harness consists of a belly-band and
chest-strap of softest leather sewn together, and further united by a
strap which passes between the dog’s forelegs. The belly-band buckles
just between the shoulders, and at this point the leader is attached
either to a ring or by a simple knot. Some hunters are content to use
an ordinary collar; but this is a wretched plan, as with a dog at all
given to pulling it produces choking and eventually injures the wind.
When the harness is properly made all pressure is on the strap across
the broad of the chest. On catching the wind of elk, or of their fresh
spoor, the dog naturally faces towards it, when the hunter must use
his judgment as to the right moment for loosing. The part of the loose
dog, having once found the elk, is either to bring him to bay, or to
cause him so far to slacken his pace that the shooter may be able to
get up. Whilst the elk is running at speed, the dog is generally mute
in pursuing, but the experienced hunter can tell by his note whether
the quarry is moving at a moderate pace or is actually stationary.
The old bulls, when they have not got wind of man or been otherwise
scared, are often easily brought to bay, and in such a case the
hunter may approach almost at his leisure; but younger elk, and cows
in particular, are much more difficult to stop, and will, as a rule,
travel a considerable, sometimes a great, distance before halting. Deer
of all ages are specially shy if they have been roused when lying down.
Their daily siesta lasts from about noon--or sometimes, according to
weather, an hour or two earlier--until two or three in the afternoon,
and consequently hunters with the loose dog generally halt during
this period, or at least part of it, and bivouac in the forest. It
is said--and, I believe, with some truth--that in those districts of
Sweden where the elk are during the season continually hunted in this
fashion, they are invariably suspicious, when the hound puts in an
appearance, that man is somewhere in the background, and that, even
when at bay, they are straining their senses to detect the presence of
their real enemy, being of course perfectly aware that the dogs, for
all their noise, can do them no harm. It is in any case needful for the
hunter, however recklessly he may have been running before, to make his
final approach as cautiously and noiselessly as possible; and this
is not so easy in a Scandinavian forest, where the ground is usually
cumbered with any number of dead trees armed with spikes as sharp as
rapiers, of rotten trunks half-buried in moss and rank vegetation, and
of dry branches and twigs which crack loudly beneath the over-hasty
and incautious foot. In the rutting season indeed such a noise is now
and then of some slight service to the hunter. I have known several
instances in which, the wind being right, a bull either searching for
the cow or suspicious of a rival has run back out of the thicket to
see what was approaching, and paid the penalty of his curiosity. Such
an incident can of course only occur when the dog is in hand, and the
sportsman will do well not to presume upon its very rare advantage.
I recollect a scared elk running twenty English miles, with the dog
still sticking to him. After giving me a difficult chance, he broke his
bay two or three times during the first hour of the chase, and how many
times subsequently I cannot say, as, finding the pace too hot for my
age and weight, I stopped and let the hunter, who was young and light
and a celebrated runner, go on with my rifle. This happened about 11
A.M., and he shot the elk just before dusk. His dog, dear old Kurrè,
was one of the staunchest loose hounds that ever lived; he was, in
fact, too good, for if he once got up to the elk he would never leave
it until dark, and not always then. On one occasion he held a bull at
bay all night, until his master came early in the morning and killed it.
So keen was this dog to keep the attention of the bayed elk on himself,
that with a kind of demoniacal glee he would actually roll on the
ground just out of reach of his forefeet. When very young he had
been struck by an elk, and was supposed at the time to be seriously
if not mortally injured; but he recovered himself, went on again,
and eventually stopped the bull, which was then shot. With all this
ferocious courage there never was a dog more gentle, good-tempered, and
well-behaved in ordinary life. When an elk hound, as is certainly not
often the case, is possessed of such magnificent staunchness as this,
great care must be taken never to slip him at a scared elk, unless the
shooter is prepared for, and physically equal to, a long stern chase
which may last for some hours. Moreover, others besides the owner of
the dog may profit by his grand qualities. The law of Scandinavia
permits an elk that has been _bonâ fide_ in the flesh roused on and
moved off one property, to be followed at the time on to another and
there killed, although one may not so follow the freshest spoor of an
animal that is simply travelling of his own accord; there is, however,
nothing to prevent the owner of the other property from killing the elk
thus moved on to it. I was once hunting near the great lake Kallsjön in
Sweden, with Kurrè and his master, when the dog, who was running loose,
slipped away unperceived and took up the fresh spoor of elk which
he did not overtake until out of our hearing. Having no clue to the
direction in which he had gone, we were at last, as evening came on,
compelled to go home without him. The next day he was sent back with
many thanks by a farmer who lived some miles off, and had heard the dog
baying the elk close to a tarn where he happened to be fishing. The man
ran home for his rifle, returned to find Kurrè still holding the family
of three--bull, cow, and calf--and killed the lot in three shots! No,
Kurrè was positively too good. Some dogs are cleverly trained never
to cross a large river or a lake in pursuit, which in a land of many
waters like Scandinavia precludes the chance of their getting too far
away. I believe that Kurrè would have swum the Skagerrak after an elk.
But the great majority of elk dogs will give in as soon as the deer
really takes to travelling, and too many of them much sooner. The
hunter must be careful not to let the leader slip out of his hand when
the dog is straining eagerly on spoor, and never to loose him with even
only a collar on. Considering that the elk when tackled by the dog
will, as a rule, make his way through dense covert and over the most
tremendous obstacles in the shape of ‘windfalls,’ where the dog has
to keep him company, it will be understood that any even momentary
check to the latter’s nimble movements, such as might be caused by a
tree-spike catching in the collar, may result in his being disabled or
killed. I once, when stalking, fired from the top of a high steep bank
at an elk which dropped to the shot and lay motionless. The hunter,
who was behind me, thinking the beast stone-dead, foolishly let go the
dog, who, with the harness on and the leader trailing, ran down the
bank, and when within a few yards of the deer was brought up short by
the leader becoming entangled in the branches of a fallen tree. The
elk at this moment revived, and was able to rise so far as to squat on
his haunches, but the hind quarters being paralysed by a shot in the
spine, he could not reach the dog, otherwise he would most certainly
have destroyed him, unless I could have dropped him again with a second
bullet; but one instant and one blow of the forefoot would have been
sufficient for the catastrophe. The hunter, who assured me he had never
done so foolish a thing before, was lucky in having the possible result
of his first folly brought home to him by so forcible and harmless a
lesson.
From what has been said it will be clear that elk hunting with the
loose dog is a manly, noble sport, fitted in reality for those who
have youth, activity, and decided staying powers. At the same time the
race is not always to the swift; experience, cunning, and knowledge
of country will effect a great deal, and under certain conditions the
elderly hunter may achieve some success; but if the elk really means
running, he may as well confess at once that he is not in it, and sit
down and light his pipe. But I strongly recommend him to turn his
attention solely to stalking with the leash-hound. He will find it
scarcely less exciting than the other branch of the sport, and quite
fatiguing enough, although it lacks that species of triumph, so dear
to Englishmen, which results from success attained by very distressing
physical exertion. The serious drawbacks to loose-dog hunting are,
first, the common necessity of killing time in the forest--or, it may
be, in a ‘sæter’ or hay-house--for some hours and in all weathers
whilst the elk are lying down. Secondly, the fact that it is, to a
great extent, blind work, that one is entirely dependent on the dog
and must run to a sound, that there is little or no opportunity for
the science of woodcraft, and none for that study of the object of the
chase which is so dear to the stalker. Thirdly, that you cannot run
a single deer for any distance without disturbing a great extent of
country. Fourthly, that there is the obligation, if not invariably yet
nearly so, to kill whatever beast the hound has succeeded in stopping,
be it a young bull with insignificant honours or a cow with a calf in
tow. The Swedish hunter never gives quarter; his immutable doctrine
may be summed up in the words, ‘Meat for the man, and blood for the
dog.’ He will not risk disappointing his hound and perhaps ruining his
staunchness, nor will he, if he can help it, stultify the whole _raison
d’être_ of the chase, nor forego his hankering after the flesh-pots.
I do not say that the English sportsman is absolutely compelled to
adhere to this merciless creed, but he will find it difficult to
withstand. He is the actor in a drama in which the hound takes the
leading part throughout until the climax, and for that he is himself
responsible; excitement, struggle, endurance, opportunity, these are
the several stages; it rests with him what the final one is to be: if
failure, well, man is prone to err and so is his bullet; after all, he
has done his best and tried to succeed--but refusal! I think he will
become conscious, possibly against his will, that this is, under the
conditions of such a chase, the most miserable _fiasco_ of all: _the_
chance at last, and tamely to forego it! he will feel that he who acts
thus is deserving of that limbo to which Dante consigned the otherwise
blameless man who refused the popedom:
Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto.
I find it to be commonly supposed that the chase of the elk is almost
always confined to comparatively low ground, covered with pine wood and
swampy thickets. There was a time when I had this notion myself, and as
regards Sweden it is, no doubt to a great extent, a correct one. But I
have recently had reason to change my mind a good deal on this point,
and I cannot do better than quote the following passage from an article
of mine in the ‘Fortnightly Review’:
Under the guidance of Elias (my Lapp hunter), who is a master in
woodcraft, elk hunting was, in a great degree, assimilated to
deer stalking. He was all for pursuing the chase on the highest
possible ground. ‘There are, of course, always elk in the low
pine forest,’ he would say, ‘and in winter it is full of them;
but at this season of the year the place to find and _kill_ them
is the high fjeld, or thereabouts.’ That this dictum was in the
main correct is proved by the fact that last season, during
thirty-two days’ hunting, we sighted--including all ages and both
sexes--no fewer than forty-one distinct elk, over two-thirds of
which were found on the high terraces and slopes just under the
crest of the mountains, or in the quiet dells and hollows of the
fjeld itself, where the birch-copse often grew barely high enough
to conceal them. They were occasionally seen lying out in the
open, like red deer. The term ‘high’ as applied to the fjeld is,
of course, relative to the general elevation of the country.
We found the best stalking ground at between 1,500 and 2,000 ft. above
the level of the valleys. I am here, of course, speaking of Norway,
where in the vast desolate districts north of Namsos I have been lucky
enough to secure the sole right to kill elk over a considerable tract,
about equal in size to the county of Surrey.[14]
The ‘bind hund’ or leash-hound should be trained, as I have said, to be
perfectly mute and quiet even when he views elk, and should be taught
also to keep close to heel when not required to lead. This latter point
is often neglected. It is pleasant to observe the clever way in which a
well-broken and steady elk dog will steer his way through covert when
in advance, seldom going the wrong side of a tree or bush, and obeying
instantaneously the slightest hint of the hand which holds the leader;
but I have watched with still greater admiration the extraordinary
accuracy with which my Lapp hunter’s dog, Passop, when kept at heel,
judges the pliability of any ash-plant or other sapling over which the
slack of the leader fastened to his master’s belt is likely to sweep.
If it is sure to bend, the dog simply stiffens his neck until the
slight strain is past; but if it is too rigid or too much branched, he
at once shifts his position from the man’s left knee, close to which he
runs, to the right, thus bringing the loop of the slack directly behind
the Lapp, who of course avoids the obstacle, and in ninety-nine cases
out of a hundred there is no check to the progress of the pair. When
the slack occasionally catches in a projecting root, stone, or dead
branch, he will spring like lightning to one side, or even backwards,
and clear it before it is drawn taut. I notice that if a rare mistake
does occur and the dog goes the wrong side of a tree, the Lapp, even
when holding the leader, will never pass the end round the tree as some
hunters do, but always pitilessly compels the dog to dodge back to the
proper side and free the line himself. The slightest, almost inaudible,
sound with the lips is enough to send Passop to the front full of
subdued eagerness, and a turn of the wrist to bring him to heel. It
is a treat to witness the way in which, when purposely brought to the
brow of a hill, he will calmly squat on his haunches and test the wind
for many minutes together, quite motionless except for the slight
turn of his head and his incessantly working nostrils. By carefully
watching his sagacious countenance, one can almost follow his subtle
appreciation of the various odours that are wafted to those delicate
organs. It may be that he will at length suddenly rise, and without
hesitation begin to lead in a particular direction, in which case it
becomes a certainty that there are elk somewhere in that quarter,
although they may be still a couple of miles or more away. Again, it
may be that this prolonged nasal scrutiny will result in his lying
down, and, with studied carelessness, beginning to nibble his foot
or lick himself, thereby demonstrating that he has temporarily lost
all interest in the wind, whereupon it becomes scarcely less certain
that there are no deer within a reasonable distance ahead, and that
one must strike into fresh country to find them. When there are no elk
about, I have seen this hound very keen, although quiet, on the scent
of fox or marten-cat, which few dogs can resist; but in the vicinity
of the nobler game he always pays the strictest attention to business,
and it is impossible to misunderstand him: quite mute with his mouth,
he speaks eloquently with the whole of his body. Some dogs are very
untrustworthy, and cause infinite trouble and annoyance by working as
impetuously up to the signs of fox or marten, or even capercailzie,
as they will to elk spoor. In approaching elk with the stalking dog,
before they are actually sighted--when his occupation is, of course,
for the moment gone--care should be taken not to advance in too direct
a line up wind; the dog should be pulled off now and then to right or
left, as the case may require, to guard against any lateral movement
on the part of the deer. It will be found that when thus pulled off,
the hound will be always trying to swing round and face the wind again,
and his movements in this way will, if carefully watched, afford a
tolerably sure indication of the actual or quite recent position of
the quarry. Any eminence in the right line should be ascended, and the
ground in front surveyed from just below its crest; and as elk have
a habit of turning abruptly and lying down, or moving to leeward of
their former track, every yard of ground on either side must be made
as safe as is possible under the circumstances. Elk can, of course, be
approached either on the line of their spoor or by the wind alone, in
case they have come from the opposite direction, and have not traversed
the ground over which the advance is made.
When the hunter is sure that he is close upon the elk and is cautiously
ascending a rise for the purpose of examining the country beyond and
at his feet, including the opposite slope of the rise itself, there is
considerable art in making safe each successive inch--which of course
represents according to distance several or many yards--of the fresh
ground as it comes into view. The narrow line revealed should be
carefully examined with concentrated attention, and as far as possible
to right and left. In this way the top of an elk’s horn or the line
of his back may be detected before the whole animal is visible. The
natural tendency of the eye is to search too much space at once, and
to keep on repeating a general gaze, including ground already made
safe, instead of fixing an intense one on a fresh and limited area.
Where there is much forest or brushwood, field-glasses will be found
of the greatest use in searching between the foliage and stems; for in
spite of their size elk are astonishingly difficult to detect, even
in low covert and by the most practised eye. Moreover, in the shadow
of a wood various objects will often bear so strong a resemblance to
a motionless elk, that even eyes as keen as those of my Lapp hunter,
whose quickness and strength of sight are remarkable, are frequently
unable to determine their real nature without reference to the glasses.
He always carries a pair of his own.
The stalker at a considerable elevation will often find that, when
expecting momentarily to view the elk, he is led to the verge of a
very steep slope, forming the side of a ravine or dell, overgrown with
trees and brushwood, and not seldom strewn with much dead lumber. On a
bank of this nature there frequently flourishes a considerable growth
of tall herbage, and of birch and mountain-ash, trees on which the
elk delights to feed; the bark of the latter is his especial dainty:
I have seen copses in which out of some hundreds of stems there was
scarcely one that did not show marks of his destroying teeth. In such
a situation--a very common one--it is almost impossible to approach
the elk from above. If they are not detected by peering over the bank,
the only safe plan is first carefully to examine the farther side of
the ravine, and then by making a long circuit to try to gain some
high point thereon from which, with due observance of the wind, the
hither side may also be inspected. I have known many native hunters,
as hasty and impatient as their dogs, blunder down into such a steep
thicket and effectually scare the elk before they sighted him. In fact,
a judicious use of the many rocky knolls and steep acclivities which
rise above the brushwood in the high-level forest of Norway is one
of the principal features of stalking, for it is in the copses which
clothe the sides of the watered dells and the basins of the mountain
tarns that the deer are oftenest found. The main point is to sight the
elk without disturbing him, after which it becomes a question of time
and patience to get a shot. If he is not at first approachable, you
must watch him until he shifts his position, and then try again; it is
better to spend the whole day in getting up to a beast than to scare
him and have to pass the next two or three days, and possibly more,
in finding another. Stalking has the great advantage over loose-dog
hunting that one need never be idle; elk when lying down may be
frequently approached with great success, and if one is forced to wait
until they move, such compulsory idleness is at all events fairly in
the day’s work; it has in it the elements of excitement and continual
hope, and is far better than merely killing time under a pine-tree or
in a hay-house.
Although the stalker will find the high-level beats best suited to
his work, he will be at times obliged to exchange their freedom and
glorious air for the close monotony of the lower pine wood, especially
for those long sombre stretches of it--half level, half slope--which so
often lie between the margin of a lake and a range of towering cliff.
Here he will find, as a rule, but little undergrowth or brushwood, but
from among the moss-coated boulders many a tall, slender mountain-ash
will be found springing up and flourishing wherever it can gain
sufficient light and air. Such a place is a favourite resort of elk,
who are generally aware of some steep pass among the cliffs by which
they can regain the higher ground. Supposing the hunter to have settled
to his satisfaction that there are deer in such a stretch of wood;
supposing him to have found their fresh signs all over it, the bared
wood of the ash-saplings showing white and the edges of the bark still
bleeding, he has before him a most difficult task in the stalk. This
is best effected by advancing in long zig-zags, working from the edge
of the water to the highest point where the signs are visible, and
_vice versâ_. This must be done at the slowest possible pace, and with
all his senses constantly on the alert. The thickly set stems of the
trees will help to conceal him, but they inconsiderately render the
same service to the elk. In this way half a mile of ground, taken in a
straight line, may perhaps be covered in an hour, and during that time
the intense attention must not be, in the slightest degree, relaxed;
there must be no hurrying of the cat-like step nor careless planting of
the foot, the rifle must be ready and the hand prepared to act on the
instant. In this kind of work there is little more physical exertion
than in sauntering along Piccadilly, nothing that is productive of
muscular fatigue, and yet such is the tension of senses and nerves
that, after a long spell of it, I have caught myself yawning with that
peculiar tense, rigid yawn which has not the faintest connection with
mental boredom, but generally betokens physical exhaustion; and I
have seen my hunter--whose responsibility was of course greater than
mine--lean and wiry as he is, growing visibly paler and wiping from his
brow the dew of anxiety. And then in a moment, when one least expects
it, if that can be said of a man who is always expecting it--but the
apparent paradox is the strict truth--comes the climax: a glimpse of
a huge dark grey mass amongst the dark grey stems of the trees, a
momentary sensation of all the columns of all the temples in Egypt
having risen to baulk one, and in another second one’s whole soul is
concentrated in the effort to find a clear space among that timber
labyrinth for the bright bead at the end of the barrels and the ounce
of lead which it directs.
The Scandinavian elk has, I believe most unjustly, been branded
with the epithet of stupid, probably owing to his uncouth personal
appearance, which is certainly not suggestive of a brilliant intellect,
nor do I deny that the bull frequently owes his safety to the superior
wariness of the cow. But, irrespective of their keen senses of
hearing and smell, the great deer will, when they have been scared and
become, in some mysterious way, aware that they are being tracked,
resort to all kinds of artifices to conceal their huge trail (of the
conspicuousness whereof they seem to be painfully conscious), and to
baffle and confuse the pursuer. A favourite trick, for example, is to
wade or swim for a long distance when the simple route lies along the
edge of a tarn or lake; another, to double sharply back at an acute
angle and travel for a long way to leeward of their original line
before resuming it; a third, to enter a river and work up the bed of it
for several hundred yards before actually crossing; a fourth, to travel
out of their way along a stony ridge where they leave no footing. I
believe myself that these stratagems always originate in the brain
of the cow, especially when she has a calf beside her. If they are
not invariably successful, chiefly owing to our employment of another
animal of equal nose and sagacity, they at least seem to me to exhibit
a considerable share of reasoning faculty incompatible with stupidity.
I find that my hunter is imbued with great respect for the intelligence
of the elk, which he considers as not so far inferior to that of the
bear; but of their eyesight he has not a high opinion. Where the lie
of the land will admit of it, a forced march may sometimes be executed
with great advantage when the elk have turned and are retreating down
wind. On the very last day of last season we were following on low
ground up wind the spoor of a bull and cow which had caught a glimpse
of us, but were not much scared; after trotting for some distance
they subsided, as we saw by the tracks, into a walk. But on reaching
a spur of rock which jutted into the forest, the extremity of a ridge
which ran up to a considerable height, they rounded it and at once
turned down wind, thereby placing us in their rear to windward had
we continued to pursue them. Without hesitation my Lapp hunter faced
about, and after following the back trail for some way under the ridge,
began to ascend the slope of the latter in a slanting direction at
such a pace that I needed all my forty days’ training to keep up with
him. As however I guessed what he was after, there was no need to ask
questions, but simply to ‘keep wiring away.’
[Illustration: Stalking elk.]
In about five-and-twenty minutes we reached the top of the ridge,
which was quite open and mattressed with thick moss, on which we lay
down. We are not given to talking much during the chase, and for ten
minutes did not say a word. My business was to recover my wind for
shooting, and I was content to leave the rest to the Lapp and Passop.
I found that we were on the brink of a little cliff, perhaps eighty
feet high, immediately under which was a fairly level terrace about a
hundred yards broad and covered with birch-trees and brushwood, with
a few Scotch firs at intervals; beyond this the ground dropped rather
suddenly to the distant landscape. I had forgotten all about my rapid
climb when the Lapp gently pressed my elbow and pointed to the left,
and in a few seconds I saw the horns and broad back of a bull elk
surge up amongst the brushwood. He was walking behind a very small cow
who preceded him by five yards or so; we had got well ahead of them,
and they were now approaching us down wind and without the slightest
suspicion. The cow gave the line to the bull just along the edge of the
bank where the terrace ended, and where the trees were thickest; by
watching her I could tell where he would appear a few seconds later.
Fortunately, just in front of us there was a clear space amongst the
branches about as long as an elk’s body, and when the cow filled
this gap I got the rifle up, and as soon as the point of the bull’s
shoulder crossed the sight pressed trigger. He fell over at once and
disappeared, all but one motionless horn, while the little cow danced
in towards the cliff until she was close under us, and then made off.
We found that the bullet had struck the centre of the base of the neck,
and the elk had died so instantaneously that his hind-quarters were
still hoisted up by the stem of a young birch against which he had
fallen under the edge of the bank. Of course in this case, being fired
from above, the bullet penetrated downwards, but in my experience,
confirmed by that of others, the neck-shot is with elk always very
deadly. Even when hit behind the shoulder they will sometimes travel
a considerable distance, but when the lead strikes fairly in the
centre of the broad neck, they usually drop within a few yards at the
outside. In stalking, owing to the utilisation of knolls and other
eminences already mentioned, a large proportion of shots are fired from
above. Every big-game sportsman has his favourite battery, but it is
as well to remember that the elk requires a heavy blow to knock him
over and save the trouble of pursuit, and that the vitality of the
bulls is often very great, especially just before the rutting season.
When hunting in the low forest and with the loose dog, it is seldom
necessary to fire at over a hundred yards, and in every rifle used for
elk the fixed backsight and the bead, taken full and quickly, should
together give this range. But on the higher and more open ground the
shooter must be prepared to accept fair chances at much longer ranges
up to, say, four hundred yards. At this distance or thereabouts, anyhow
with the corresponding sight up, I have myself been several times
successful. Most Englishmen will employ a hunter or attendant, but it
is scarcely needful to say that, with thoroughly trained and steady
dogs, either style of pursuit may be practised alone. In stalking, the
leader may be conveniently fastened round a tree or bush while the shot
is taken. The shooter must not be over-sanguine of sport. If he spares
cows and very young deer, and gets from four to six bulls during his
thirty or forty days’ season, he ought to be more than satisfied.