AN ELK SEASON. 151 



all hope of sport in its not only close but very wide 

 vicinity. Of recent years elk have increased largely 

 in numbers in Namdalen, although, owing to the ruth- 

 less way in which the young bulls are shot, good 

 heads are not common. 



On my six farms were four saeters, or huts, from 

 which the outlying districts could be conveniently 

 hunted. Before the season opened I visited these 

 saeters, and was able to gain some knowledge of the 

 ground. At the last moment I rented an extra right 

 which the owner, a farmer in a small way, declared to 

 be excellent, and as he was willing that 1 should walk 

 over the ground with an elk-dog I did so. This right, 

 on a farm called Brusvasaasen, adjoined my best Elstad 

 ground, and among the raspberry canes, which covered 

 the hillside, there were such evident traces of elk as to 

 convince me that the farmer was in the right. I there- 

 fore came to an arrangement with him. 



Elk-hunting in Norway, though it demands hard 

 work and effort, compares unfavourably in my opinion 

 with moose-hunting in that it must be pursued on 

 long-occupied ground, and does not give anything like 

 the same opportunities for wilderness life, but is in fact 

 carried out under conditions rather similar to those of 

 an exceedingly rough Scottish shooting, Although I 

 took a tent over, I could never succeed in persuading 

 the Norwegians to use it. They objected on the score 

 that to camp in a tent would only result in driving 

 away the elk, who took little notice of the summer 

 camps in the saeters because they were accustomed to 

 them, whereas the unfamiliar sight of a tent camp would 

 alarm them. As I had always, out of England, hunted 

 in countries where the whole land was free, I felt at first 



