178 



BIG GAME SHOOTING 



the double dagger is driven home to the heart with all the '. 

 power of the osero's right arm. | 



This kind of bear-hunting is hereditary, the profession of ; 

 osero passing from father to son with the peasants of the i 

 Asturias ; but for the most part the bear is killed like other ! 

 game in Spain, by means of large organised ' drives ' or ' 

 batidas. 



Red deer are found locally and irregularly over several 

 provinces of the Peninsula, differing in type from Scotch red 

 deer in the absence of the shaggy mane or ruff on the neck, : 

 and in some slight modifications in the horns. Being chiefly \ 

 forest deer their heads are narrow, and the animals slim built ': 

 and game-like. They are found both in the mountains and J 

 among the extensive pine forests and scrub-covered plains ; but \ 

 the finest heads are obtained in the Sierra Morena, to the west \ 

 of Cordova, though the deer are most numerous in the southern 

 wooded plains of Andalusia, in which part of the Peninsula; 

 the writers of this chapter, forming two of a party of eight or 

 ten guns, have killed from twenty to thirty stags in a week's 

 shooting, besides wild boar, lynx, and other beasts, and between 

 sixty and seventy stags in a season. ' 



Deer shooting usually begins in November and ends in 

 February or early in March. \ 



The following are measurements of heads that we have had \ 

 the fortune to obtain in Andalusia. Though not the largest ■ 

 known, they are good typical heads : — | 



Forest Deer 



I 



