4 SPORT IN EUROPE 



examples of comparatively recent reintroduction are the cases of the 

 ibex, reintroduced in the Graian Alps by the late Victor Emmanuel, 

 and carefully preserved there by his son, the late King Humbert, and 

 the restoration of capercailzie to several Scotch forests by a former 

 Marquess of Breadalbane and other enthusiastic sportsmen. In the 

 same way, German stags have been turned down in the forests of the 

 Ardennes, Hungarian stags have been imported into Germany, and 

 the ibex and moufflon have been made at home in the mountains of 

 Hungary. Among birds, mention may be made of the Scotch grouse 

 turned down in the neighbourhood of Malmedy, and of pheasants ac- 

 climatised of recent years in various parts of Denmark and Roumania. 

 Of fishes latterly transplanted in this manner, the American rainbow- 

 trout is perhaps the chief, though our carp came from Asia. 



Few aspects of the social progress of the closing century in Europe 

 show a truer indication of the altered fortunes of the democracy 



than the game laws. Nowadays, even where adverse 

 Game Laws. 



criticism permits their survival at all, they have no 



object beyond preserving the game for the sportsman who, by 

 hereditary right or depth of purse, can lay claim to exclusive rights 

 in certain territories. The game laws of the Middle Ages, however, 

 took the form of preserving the privileges of the chase to the Court, 

 nobles, and clergy ; so that the death penalty awaited the deerslayer, 

 while even a first poaching offence earned the perpetrator a sound 

 flogging. The opposition aroused by such brutal penalties has not 

 died out with their abolition. In France, once perhaps the head- 

 quarters of the chase, we shall observe the most complete volte-face. 

 The Revolution was, of course, the beginning of the end, as far as 



