THE PASSING OF THE WILD 325 



acteristic Moslem indifference, and any re- 

 strictions on indiscriminate shooting are framed 

 rather to put difficulties in the way of carrying 

 arms, though much even of this restraint has 

 disappeared since the Constitution. 



The case of the elk, in Norway and Sweden, 

 is perhaps of greatest interest to English 

 sportsmen, who have long looked on Scandi- 

 navia as a playground that affords exceptional 

 shooting and fishing. Until recently, that 

 splendid deer was not protected, and in 1894 

 a thousand elk were shot in Norway alone. 

 Native opinion wakes slowly in the north, but 

 it seems at length to have realised that the elk 

 was falling off in numbers, and, what was of 

 more practical interest, that it was being slain 

 by rich foreigners who might be willing to pay 

 for their amusement. The Storthing accord- 

 ingly raised the tax on such sport, with the 

 twofold result that the extermination of the 

 elk has been indefinitely averted, and the not 

 too prosperous treasury of the country has 

 likewise benefited. Formerly the elk in 

 Sweden was protected for various periods, but 

 the new regulation in Norway is much more 

 effectual, as the animal can now be shot only 

 during twenty days of the year, beginning on 

 the tenth of September. 



Many of the States of America have fol- 

 lowed the French example of taxing the 



