78 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



cessful. It will therefore, we are inclined to think, best serve 

 the practical purposes of these volumes if prominence is given 

 to chamois shooting in those regions of the Central Alps which 

 may be considered the true home of that sport. 



In Tyrol, the Bavarian Highlands,^ Upper Austria, and 

 Styria, the regions best adapted for chamois shoots are in the 

 hands of the Austrian nobility, or of the Imperial House, or of 

 foreign potentates, who in their own countries cannot establish 

 chamois drives. Besides these large and well-guarded pre- 

 serves, there are also peasant-shoots where strangers can with 

 comparative ease procure permission to stalk. With few 

 exceptions, to one of which more detailed reference will be 

 made, the sport obtainable in peasant-shoots is poor ; for where 

 it is open to the natives (born mountaineers, and as keen and 

 hardy sportsmen as can be found anywhere), game is in con- 

 sequence of constant molestation more difficult of approach, 

 and less plentiful than in preserves where, with the exception 

 of a fortnight or two in the autumn, it is never disturbed. In 

 the peasant-shoots chamois are never driven but always stalked, 

 and the stranger attempting to do as the natives do must make 

 up his mind to undergo very hard work, put up with very rough 

 fare, and must consider himself lucky if he manages to get a 

 shot the third or fourth day out. Indeed, there can be no 

 better test of a man's love for sport or of his woodcraft than 

 to let him attempt to get a chamois in a peasant's-shoot un- 

 assisted by native hunters. On the other hand, to stalk chamois 

 in a preserve under the guidance of a keeper is really a very 

 ordinary matter ; good wind, a fairly clear head, and moderately 

 good eyesight are the chief qualifications beyond the knack of 

 doing exactly what one is told. 



The nature of the ground where chamois are found differs 

 vastly. Thus in the Bavarian Highlands where the shooting 

 rights are almost entirely in the hands of the Royal House, 



• The term ' Bavarian Tyrol ' one often hears used is entirely incorrect. 

 There is but one Tyrol, and for more than five hundred years it has formed 

 part of the Austrian Empire. 



