MOUNTAIN GAME OF THE CAUCASUS 59 



game will sometimes stop for a second in full flight if the 

 unseen hunter gives a shrill whistle. But once a ttir, unhit or 

 wounded, has discovered the hunter, nothing will induce him 

 to stop travelling for the next quarter of an hour, and no beasts 

 which I know will take so much lead with them {uphill even) 

 as rams generally, and mere especially Caucasian rams. 



Having elsewhere published the story of most of my own 

 best days amongst the tilr, I have drawn upon some notes of 

 Mr. Littledale (the most successful hunter, I verily believe, who 

 ever carried a rifle between the Black Sea and the Caspian) for 

 a story illustrative of tiir shooting, and have told it almost in 

 his own words. 



Being camped at the extreme limit to which it was possible 

 to take horses, even with half-loads, and having his wife in 

 camp with him, Mr. Littledale was obliged to rise every day by 

 starlight and do half a day's work before getting to his shooting 

 grounds. In order to lighten the work for his hunters, he had 

 sent them on to a spot higher up, some four hours' walk from 

 camp, there to await his coming every morning. 



The interpreter he had with him was an untrustworthy sort of 

 fellow, and the camp was full of half- wild natives, good enough 

 men in their way, but as troublesome and mischievous as boys. 

 This state of affairs in the main camp made it essential that, 

 instead of sleeping where he shot, Littledale should return to 

 :amp every evening. 



On the first day he rose at 2 a.m., and, guided by a native 

 uver some extremely bad going, reached the hunters' camp by 

 6 A.M. Here Littledale left his guide and went on with the 

 hunters, who were up and ready for him. 



That first day Littledale saw a band of ttlr feeding on a 

 lope above his party, but as the day grew older the band made 

 for the crags, and, in spite of all the hunters' efforts, reached 

 heir regular haunt on an inaccessible ledge and lay down 

 there. An attempt to get at them by making a wide detour 

 only resulted in moving the game, although the hint of man's 

 proximity conveyed to them by some eddy of wind was not 



