THE RISS. 167 



formerly was on the mountains. He added, that one 

 morning, when out early, he had counted seventy- 

 five red-deer and a hundred and fifty chamois as he 

 went along ; once at Tegernsee he had seen a hun- 

 dred and seventy-five chamois together ; and the ave- 

 rage number of warrantable stags shot in each district 

 every season was twenty-four. 



The quantity in other parts must have been im- 

 mense. A friend of mine, who was lately on a visit 

 to Prince Lamberg in Styria, told me what the Prince 

 himself related to him : that since the revolution not 

 less than ten thousand head of game have, according 

 to his computation, been stolen from his domain, con- 

 sisting of red-deer, chamois, and roe-deer. To the 

 English reader this seems hardly credible, but from 

 the number known to have been there formerly, and 

 what are now left, it is certainly not an over-estimate*. 



These are exciting stories for the sportsman; they 

 stir up all his latent longings, and something very 

 like envy creeps into his heart as he listens to them. 

 I have always thought how natural it is that the Indian 

 should furnish his heaven with the rarest hunting- 

 grounds. 



The forester came out to meet us as we approached 

 the house : he had heard my shot, and was curious 

 to know the result. That evening we had a consulta- 



* To give a proof that it is not so, I may state that the keepers 

 found every year eight hundred pair of antlers which the stags had 

 shed. As the number not found is always considerable, some notion 

 may be formed, from this circumstance alone, of the quantity of red- 

 deer which must have been there. 



