A WALK TO FISCHBACHAU. 49 



I have enjoyed the privilege of shooting for the last 

 ten years, all the red-deer have been destroyed. From 

 forty-five to fifty-two or fifty-three good stags were 

 shot every season, and now there are not half-a-dozen 

 in the whole forest range. Although the peasantry 

 may occasionally have had to complain of the super- 

 abundance of game in the lowlands, there could be 

 no excuse for this total destruction of the chamois, 

 which from its habits could do no possible injury to 

 the crops of the husbandman. The higher mountains 

 were their dwelling-place, and the herbs they found 

 on their green sides, with the young sprouts of the 

 latschen*, afforded them nourishment. But the in- 

 toxication caused by the possession of a new right 

 blinded the peasantry even to their own profit and 

 advantage; and rather than let a chase for a good 

 price, as is done with the moors in Scotland, they 

 harried the game, and, having depopulated the moun- 

 tains, find at last that what might have proved a con- 

 stant source of profit and pleasure is now thoroughly 

 exhausted. But excess characterizes every social revo- 

 lution. It is, too, the very spirit all proscriptions 

 that they be carried on unrelentingly, and with a view 



* Latschen Pinus Pumilio is a sort of pine found on the moun- 

 tains, growing on their barren sides or out of the crevices of the 

 rocks. It does not at once grow upwards, but creeps along the 

 ground for some distance before its branches rise perpendicularly. 

 Its foliage is dense and bushy, and forms a good covert for the game. 

 This shrub might be called " The Hunter's Friend," for on its boughs 

 he may always rely, as they never break with the strongest pull. 

 He must only be careful not to bend them, for then they snap at 

 once. 



