THE CHAMOIS loi 



The following account of a ' Treibjagd ' in the Duke of Saxe- 

 Coburg's famous preserves in the Hinter Riss in Tyrol will give 

 a comprehensive picture of driving chamois at its very best. 



In this vast preserve, consisting of a great strip of mountain 

 country, a very sea of jagged ranges, stretching from the Inn 

 Valley to the Isar, driving is made a fine art, the experience of 

 fifty years assisting to no little extent the efforts of as fine a staft 

 of keepers as can be found in the Alps. Sport can be obtained 

 there with a luxurious ease that is in striking contrast to the 

 hard fare and rough times usually the lot of the stalker. To 

 drive chamois over an exceedingly rough country in a given 

 direction is a very much harder task, however, than appears 

 on the face of it. Take a tract of mountains, the selection for 

 that da/s drive, five or six miles square, connected with ad- 

 joining ranges by numerous passes by which the wary game 

 can easily escape ; take the extreme uncertainty of the wind in 

 these elevated localities, now blowing in the desired direction, 

 now suddenly veering round, carrying the alarm for many miles 

 to the keen-scented game, and undoing in one minute the 

 most carefully planned manoeuvre, and it will be realised how 

 many obstacles and contingencies, often of the most unforeseen 

 nature, must be provided for to make a drive successful. 

 Where such large areas have to be surrounded a whole army 

 of beaters would not suffice to keep chamois in the drive, and 

 the ' lappen,' or flags, one of the most important aids on such 

 occasions, have to be employed. These consist of many 

 miles of strong cord to which at intervals of every four or five 

 feet bright-coloured pieces of linen about the size of a pocket- 

 handkerchief are fastened. These cords, resembling a 

 laundry line hung low, are drawn on two sides of the tract to 

 be driven, and are kept in position about three feet from the 

 ground by rods firmly fastened into the rocks. Swayed by the 

 breeze these flags wave to and fro, and under ordinary circum- 

 stances serve their purpose of preventing the chamois escaping 

 that way. As a rule they are strung along the knifeback back- 

 bone of the mountains to be enclosed, jagged ridges peculiar 



