THE CHAMOIS 99 



tinental fashion, which latter leaves one the free use of the hands 

 and arms for climbing. For all ordinary purposes in driving and 

 also in stalking chamois the solid bullet should be used, for the 

 disfiguring effect of the hollow bullet at short ranges on such 

 comparatively small game as chamois is to be avoided, and 

 in many shoots there is a standing rule against them. For 

 stalking, when one is alone, and a wounded chamois is hkely 

 to baulk one's best efforts to get it, the hollow bullet has certain 

 advantages, for wounded game succumbs as a rule much 

 sooner, and it is also much more easily tracked. Considering 

 that the hollow and the solid bullets have very different tra- 

 jectories, the promiscuous use of both out of the same barrel is 

 fatal to good marksmanship.^ 



Good field-glasses, preferably of aluminium, being much 

 lighter than other metal, are quite indispensable, and are better 

 than telescopes in the hands of all but the most experienced, 

 for they give a much larger field and can be used more 

 constantly. Chamois, particularly early in the season, are, on 

 account of their dun coats, hard to see against a background 

 of rocks, and, even with some practice in knowing where to 

 look for them, a close scrutiny is necessary. 'Steigeisen,' or 

 crampons, are most useful when once one has become used to 

 them ; to the tiro they are, however, often a source of danger, 

 and in really bad places when stalking alone bare feet answer 

 the same purpose. The already mentioned 'rucksack,' or 

 Tyrolese game-bag, is the stalker's best friend, not only in the 

 Alps, but in any part of the world for rough work. It is a bag 

 of canvas, with two broad leather straps to pass the arms 

 through. Its lightness — it weighs only a few ounces — and 

 extreme simplicity are advantages apparent to everybody who 

 has used it once. When empty one can put it into one's 

 coat-pocket, and when required one can carry in it a roebuck 

 r chamois in the manner least fatiguing, for the weight is 



1 This difficulty the writer, after years of experimentalising, has overcome 

 using the hollow exclusively out of the right and the solid out of the left 

 !/arrel of a rifle built expressly for this purpose. 



H 2 



