96 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



There is perhaps no animal so peaceful and at the 

 same time so timid as the chamois. Nature therefore, 

 besides endowing it with a facility of climbing into 

 the most inaccessible places, and thus avoiding pursuit, 

 has enabled it to guard against the approach of danger 

 by the great acuteness of its senses of sight, smell, and 

 hearing. It is this which makes it so very difficult to get 

 near them. A rolling stone or a spoken word at once 

 attracts their attention ; and they will look and listen 

 to discover whence the sound has come that breaks 

 the silence of their mountain solitude. Por an incre- 

 dibly long time they will then stand gazing fixedly in 

 one direction, quite immoveable ; and if it happen to 

 be towards something in your neighbourhood that 

 their attention has been attracted, you must lie still 

 and close indeed to escape their observation. The 

 eyes of the whole herd will be fixed on the spot in a 

 long steady stare ; and as you anxiously watch them 

 from afar they almost look like fragments of rock, so 

 motionless are they while they gaze. You begin to 

 hope they have found no cause for alarm, when 

 " Phew !" the sharp whistle tells they have fathomed 

 the mystery, and away they move to the precipitous 

 rocks overhead : unless panic-stricken, they stop from 

 time to time to look behind; and then suddenly 

 uttering the peculiar shrill sound, again move on. 



It is true that on the mountains, where an awful 

 silence ever broods, the slightest noise breaking the 

 stillness is heard with wonderful distinctness a great 

 way off; but even making allowance for this, there is 



