MOUNTAIN GAME OF THE CAUCASUS 55 



■>eason. This is to some extent corroborated by a note of 

 -Mr. Littledale's to the effect that in 1886 he found the old 

 rams in a certain remote district on the south side of the cham, 

 13,000 feet and more above sea-level. 



But the only true way to hunt ibex is to follow them to 

 their own haunts, and if they will go high up, then must you 

 gohigher. There is but one top to a mountain, even tOr 

 cannot get above that ; and the man who, having got to the 

 crest of the ridge, has the hardihood to sleep there (no great 

 hardship if he has a sleeping bag with him) is pretty sure of 

 success, even with Capra cylindricornis. The first rule in hunting 

 mountain game is, that if you want to get near them you must 

 hunt them from above. A few hawks, an occasional eagle, and 

 the great snow-partridge are the only living things which share 

 the mountain peaks with the ttir, and from these they have 

 nothing to fear. But watch them before they lie down for 

 their midday siesta^ and you will see how they stand and stare 

 from their dizzy resting-place down on to the lower slopes of 

 the mountain ; notice, too, how the old solitary rams choose 

 their beds on some narrow ledge commanding every possible 

 approach from the lowlands. They know that man, their one 

 enemy, lives below them, and it is for him that they are in- 

 cessantly on the watch. The smoke of a camp fire on the edge 

 of the pine forest in Svanetia, if seen, as it probably will be by 

 some of the sentinels of the mountain herds, is sufficient to 

 scare every beast from that side the ridge for days ; for, remote 

 as his haunts are, the t6r has been hunted by the natives for 

 generations, and is alive to every move in the hunter's game- 

 But from above the tur expects no danger, and is therefore 

 comparatively easy to approach, always provided that no eddy- 

 ing gust of wind brings the scent of man to his keen nostrils. 

 If this happens the hunter's next view of him will be on a sky- 

 line which it would take human feet a couple of hours to reach, 

 and the direct road to which appears inipossible for anything 

 without wings. There is only one sense in which the tClr is 

 inferior to the lowland beasts, and that is in his hearing. A 



