THE SCANDINAVIAN ELK [49 



before him a most difficult task in the stalk. This is best 

 effected by advancing in long zig-zags, working from the edge 

 of the water to the highest point where the signs are visible, 

 and vice versa. This must be done at the slowest possible pace, 

 and with all his senses constantly on the alert. The thickly 

 set stems of the trees will help to conceal him, but they incon- 

 siderately render the same service to the elk. In this way half 

 a mile of ground, taken in a straight line, may perhaps be 

 covered in an hour, and during that time the intense attention 

 must not be, in the slightest degree, relaxed ; there must be no 

 hurrying of the cat-like step nor careless planting of the foot, 

 the rifle must be ready and the hand prepared to act on the 

 instant. In this kind of work there is little more physical 

 exertion than in sauntering along Piccadilly, nothing that is 

 productive of muscular fatigue, and yet such is the tension of 

 senses and nerves that, after a long spell of it, I have caught 

 myself yawning with that peculiar tense, rigid yawn which has 

 not the faintest connection with mental boredom, but generally 

 betokens physical exhaustion ; and I have seen my hunter — 

 whose responsibility was of course greater than mine — lean 

 and wiry as he is, growing visibly paler and wiping from his 

 brow the dew of anxiety. And then in a moment, when one 

 least expects it, if that can be said of a man who is always 

 expecting it — but the apparent paradox is the strict truth — 

 comes the climax : a glimpse of a huge dark grey mass amongst 

 the dark grey stems of the trees, a momentary sensation of all 

 the columns of all the temples in Egypt having risen to baulk 

 one, and in another second one's whole soul is concentrated in 

 the effort to find a clear space among that timber labyrinth for 

 the bright bead at the end of the barrels and the ounce of lead 

 . hich it directs. 



The Scandinavian elk has, I believe most unjustly, been 



branded with the epithet of stupid, probably owing to his un- 



outh personal appearance, which is certainly not suggestive of 



a brilliant intellect, nor do I deny that the bull frequently owes 



his safety to the superior wariness of the cow. But, irrespective 



