ON PLAIN AND PEAK 



alternate love and war among the birches. Phea- 

 sants strut through every covert, and hares and 

 partridges swarm on the plains. And besides all 

 these there is the roebuck. 



This graceful little deer is abundant throughout 

 the Austrian Empire. According to the Govern- 

 ment statistics, 68, no roe were killed in Austria 

 (not including Hungary) in the year 1894. 1 l %95> 

 13,118 roe deer were shot in Bohemia alone. Of 

 these numbers, by far the greater proportion are 

 bucks, as to kill a doe is considered a most unsports- 

 manlike proceeding ; and it is safe to assume that 

 nine out of every ten bucks are shot with a rifle. 



The different estimation in which the roebuck is 

 held on the Continent, to what it is in our own 

 country, must have struck every sportsman who has 

 been fortunate enough to shoot on the other side 

 of the Channel. And I think that every one who 

 has stalked a roebuck in the Austrian forests, and 

 partaken of the delicious Rehbraten afterwards, will 

 agree with me that, in this case, our insular prejudice 

 is wrong ! 



The roebuck, as most people are aware, is the 

 smallest of European deer ; and, unlike the red and 

 fallow deer, is never found in large herds. To say, 

 however, as some writers of popular natural his- 

 tories have done, that " it is strictly monogamous," 

 and that the buck remains true to the doe for life, 



42 



