230 CHAMOIS HUNTING. 



Thus we had spent the better part of our day in 

 trying to approach them, and were unable to fire a 

 shot. Going downwards now was a quick affair. 

 The loose stones give way beneath your weight, and 

 slide forwards, carrying you with them twenty feet or 

 more perhaps at a time ; and in this manner, leaning 

 back on your pole, with your heels dug into the 

 rubble, you are soon at the bottom. We were only 

 thirty minutes thus sliding down. 



We went home by the Gems Wand. We saw two 

 fine bucks below us in a green valley, but far as they 

 were they scented our approach. 



When in the evening we gave the forester an account 

 of our doings, on telling him about this latter herd 

 which we had tried to get near, he said we might per- 

 haps have been more successful if we had stuck a stick 

 up among the stones, and placed on it a hat or hand- 

 kerchief *. " Many a time," said he, " have I done so 

 when out alone, and wishing to attract their attention 

 in one particular direction, while I got round near them 

 in another. There is no animal more curious than a 

 chamois; if he sees something he has not observed 

 before, he looks and looks to make out what it is. 

 They will stare at and examine a thing for hours in 

 this way ; and they are then so busied with the novelty 

 they see, that they do not look about with their usual 



* In Catlin's work on America there is a print of an Indian who 

 has adopted the same plan. He is lying in the grass, near a stick, on 

 which a cloth is fluttering ; while approaching within shot is a herd 

 of antelopes, following one behind the other, and looking at the 

 novelty with countenances expressive of wonder and curiosity. 



