440 SPORT IN EUROPE 



IV.— BULGARIA. 



I now come to Bulgaria, a country with which I have a closer 



acquaintance than with the preceding. A stranger will require several 



days in order to procure his shooting licence, as, under Prince 



Ferdinand, the game laws have been revised and stricdy enforced. 



Non-residents need to find two sureties and to fulfil 



°° ^"^ several tedious formalities before obtaining their tes- 

 Licence. 



kereJis. There are, however, no obstacles put in the way 

 of importing rifles and ammunition, the best route being via Bourgas. 

 Sofia, the capital, is a neat, pretty little city with excellent rail- 

 way communications. The climate is certainly one of the best in 

 the world, being dry and warm in summer and exhilarating in winter. 

 Within easy drive of the hotels one can find several prolific marshes 

 and a certain amount of woodcock covert. Quail breed all round 

 Sofia in large numbers, and half a hundred can easily be bagged 

 in the early autumn at any time. 



The marshes hold numbers of snipe and duck, and afford ex- 

 cellent sport. There are here and there dangerous places, and no 

 stranofer should venture on them alone for the first 

 , time, especially on the Tuni Sviet bog, which is one 



of the best, but sprinkled with bleached bones of 

 drowned cattle. Besides the ordinary snipe, in the spring and 

 autumn, the double snipe visits Bulgaria. Though never shot in 

 anything approaching the numbers which swell the bag of the 

 St. Petersburg sportsman, it is not out of the way to bring back 

 between a dozen and twenty of this beautiful and luscious bird. 



