NEW ZEALAND DEER-STALKING 105 



took as our march. We heard a great many stags 

 roaring, but they obstinately refused to come out 

 of the bush. Indeed, during the whole fortnight 

 we were at this camp, I only saw about two good 

 stags in the open, though Burton was more fortunate. 

 The cunning old brutes used to give their hinds an 

 airing just before the dawn broke, and then hustle 

 them back into the forest where they spent the 

 day, and whence their angry roars only served to 

 exasperate us. " Bush " in New Zealand is only 

 another name for forest, composed for the most 

 part of a tree known as "white birch," though 

 really, I believe, a kind of beech. Deer are fond of 

 its leaves, which, with snow-grass, celmesias, and 

 various herbs, form their favourite food. The under- 

 growth is horrible stuff, made up in many parts of 

 a long clinging green creeper, locally spoken of as 

 " lawyer." It has all the vices of its class with 

 none of the virtues. 



The ground in Otago is very rough, far more so 

 than in any part of Scotland in which I have ever 

 stalked. It consists mostly of big corries, the lower 

 slopes covered with bush and minuka scrub, the upper 

 tops of loose slides of rough shale, granite, and large 

 boulders. These alternate with tracts of snow-grass, 

 whose great flaunting tufts are so distinctive a 

 feature in the scenery of the South Island. They 

 make terrible walking, being very slippery, and until 

 you know your way about are apt to bring one into 

 closer contact with Mother Earth than is either 



