24 SPORT IN EUROPE 



or on such occasions, where the use of the rifle is absolutely dangerous, 



viz., at large drives in a perfectly flat country where a great number 



of persons are about. Even then good sportsmen turn 

 Roedeer. 



away their heads, so to speak, when they pull trigger, 



for this graceful little deer is considered to be worthy of the more 



sporting arm with which the stag or the chamois is brought down. 



Close upon 70,000 roedeer are annually shot in Austria alone, not 



counting Hungary at all, where, as another contributor to this work 



will probably show, they are found with even finer heads and of larger 



body than in the less propitious sub-alpine country west of -it, though, 



as a matter of fact, one finds roedeer often at considerable elevations 



sharing the succulent alpine pasturage of the chamois. In such 



regions, however, the first severe winter will wipe out the majority 



of the stock, for roedeer are by no means as hardy as the chamois, 



which manacres to live throusfh terrific winters. 



Another kind of sport, which can be indulged in during the 

 fortnight or three weeks of the roedeer's rut in August, is "calling." 

 For this purpose the sportsman imitates the doe's bleat, thus attracting 

 the amorous buck to approach his hiding-place. Roe. as everyone 

 knows, dwell principally in more or less dense underwood, and, as 

 dogs should never be used in their chase, their practice of breaking 

 back, or taking ringing runs, when beaters are put into their thickets, 

 necessitates tactics quite different from those employed in the chase 

 of other game. 



Blackcock and capercailzie shooting in spring is another very 

 favourite sport, and one which Englishmen should enjoy ere they 

 condemn it as "potting birds sitting in trees"; for I am quite sure 



