398 



APPENDIX B. 



ON THE ANNIHILATION OF BIG GAME IN GREECE. 



The term " Big Game," though hardly expressing my mean- 

 ing of game that is suited to the rifle, seems to be the only 

 expression applicable. (The German Haarwild would be 

 better, did it not include the fox and the hare.) Of such 

 game Greece has, or had till recently, a good many varieties. 

 There were red-deer, with a range extending from Olympus 

 to the west coast, fallow - deer ,on the Adramyttian Gulf, 

 chamois on the higher mountains (one in the Athens Univer- 

 sity Museum is described as killed not many years ago), roe- 

 deer in many parts, Grecian ibex on Antimilo, a similar 

 animal on Joura, feral goats on many of the islands, wild 

 boar pretty widely distributed, feral pig on Euboea, and lastly, 

 wolves certainly, and bears probably, on Olympus and the 

 Turkish frontier generally. Of such a list any country might 

 be proud, and, if exceedingly rare animals are counted, it 

 might be extended. For instance there is a European lynx 

 from the Morea in the collection above referred to. Until 

 1897 these various animals had a fair chance of holding their 

 own. The Greeks, it is true, killed them when they could, 

 irrespective of season or sex. but their weapons, mostly long- 

 barrelled converted flint-lock muskets, were indifferent, and 

 their ammunition worse. Now all this has been changed. At 

 the time of the Turkish War^ some patriotically-minded, but 

 very misguided, individuals, thinking that the Greek people 

 would fly to arms, flooded the country with an enormous 

 number of Gras rifles, originally in use in the French army. 



^ Not the recent war. 



