112 



BIG GAME SHOOTING 



CHAPTER VII 



THE STAG OF THE ALPS 



By W. a. Baillie-Grohman 



The red deer to be found on the Continent of Europe can, 

 broadly speaking, be divided into two families : those inhabit- 

 ing the more or less isolated forests on the great plains of 

 Central and Northern Europe, and those making the mountain- 

 ous regions of South- Eastern Europe, chiefly in the Austro» 

 Hungarian Empire, their home. Whilst it is not always easy 

 to draw a topographical line of demarcation between plains 

 and mountains, this broad subdivision has a great deal to do 

 with the explanation of the fact that the mountain stag has, 

 in the course of the two or three last centuries, deteriorated 

 less than has the stag of the plains. 



The retrogression of the latter has been much greater than 

 is generally supposed, and it is not till one has investigated the j 

 abundant evidence placed at the disposal of those having the 

 necessary opportunities for research that the vast decrease in 

 numbers and deterioration in the size of the animal and of its 

 proud trophy are brought home to one. Months of interesting 

 study are afforded by the perusal in German archives of the 

 shooting diaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a 

 period when, as is well known, the love for the noble art of 

 venery swayed the great territorial lords and potentates of Ger- 

 many, France and Austria to an all-absorbing degree of which 

 it is difficult to form a correct idea in these days of responsible 

 government. Such study of old diaries, kept as a rule with far 



