366 MAMMALIA— CHAMOIS. 



of for the heads of canes. The hides of these animals are very strong and 

 supple, and good warm waistcoats and gloves are made of them. 



The hunting of the chamois is very laborious, and extremely difficult and 

 perilous. It is thus admirably described by Saussure : — "The chamois 

 hunter sets out upon his expedition of fatigue and danger generally in the 

 night. His object is to find himself, at the break of day, in the most elevat- 

 •ed pastures, where the chamois comes to feed before the flocks shall have 

 arrived there. The chamois feeds only at morning and at evening. When 

 the hunter has nearly reached the spot where he expects to find his prey, he 

 leconnoitres with a telescope. If he find not the chamois, he mounts still 

 higher; but if he discovers him, he endeavors to climb above him and to 

 get nearer, by passing round some ravine, or gliding behind some eminence 

 or rock. "When he is near enough to distinguish the horns of the animal, 

 (which are small, round, pointed, and bent backward like a hook, as 

 in the wood cut,) he rests his rifle upon a rock, and takes his aim with 

 great coolness. He rarely misses. This rifle is often double-barrelled. 

 If the chamois falls, the hunter runs to his prey — makes sure of him by 

 cutting the hamstrings — and applies himself to consider by what way he 

 may best regain his village. If the route is very difficult, he contents him- 

 self with skinning the chamois; but if the way is at all practicable Avith 

 a load, he throws the animal over his shoulder, and bears it home to his 

 family, undaunted by the distance he has to go, and the precipices he has 

 to cross. 



"But when, as is more frequently the case, the vigilant animal perceives 

 the hunter, he flies with the greatest swiftness into the glaciers, leaping 

 with incredible speed over the frozen snows and pointed rocks. It is parti- 

 cularly difficult to approach the chamois when there are many together. 

 The sentinel, who is placed on the point of some rock which commands all 

 the avenues of their pasturage, makes the sharp hissing sound already 

 mentioned; at the sound of which all the rest run towards him, to judge 

 for themselves of the nature of the danger. If they discover a beast of prey 

 or a hunter, the most experienced puts himself at their head, and they 

 bound along, one after the other, into the most inaccessible places. 



"It is then that the labors of the hunter commence; for then, carried 

 away by the excitement, he knoAvs no danger. He crosses the snows, Avith- 

 out thinking of the abysses which they may cover; he plunges into the most 

 dangerous passes of the mountains ; he climbs up ; he leaps from rock to 

 rock, without considering how he can return. The night often finds him 

 in the heat of the pursuit; but he does not give it up for this obstacle. He 

 considers that the chamois avuT stop during the darkness, as Avell as him- 

 self, and that on the morroAV he may again reach them. He passes, then, 

 the night — not at the foot of a tree, nor in a cave covered with A'erdure, as 

 does the hunter of the plain — but upon a naked rock, or upon a heap of 

 rough stones, without any sort of shelter. He is alone, without fire, without 



