120 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



unsuccessful stalks it is safe to say the failure is attributable 

 to the watchfulness of the hinds, an experience which, it is 

 perhaps needless to say, is by no means confined to the red 

 deer of Europe. 



With the exception of a few days at the height of the rut, 

 stags only ' call ' or ' roar ' at night-time, and during the early 

 hours of the morning. Not every rutting season affords the 

 same chances for sport. What in the sportsman's eyes is a 

 good season is marked by its briefness, say ten days, and by 

 a corresponding intensity of its peculiarities. In such seasons, 

 the stag that roars one night at a certain place will, if not dis- 

 turbed, make himself heard in the same locality the next 

 night. In bad seasons, usually on account of unseasonably 

 warm or wet weather, the stags roam further afield, and ' roar ' 

 far less regularly, the impelling instincts being apparently less 

 violently aroused. In such cases they will continue the rut 

 fully ten days longer, but far more intermittently than in the 

 former. 



The favourite rutting-places, or ' Brunftplatze,' of the Alpine 

 stag do not appear, so far as surroundings are concerned, to be 

 subject to any particular rule. They are generally well up on 

 the mountains, not far from timber-line, and ordinarily on clear- 

 ings or park-like openings of a marshy character, such as 

 often are to be found on the small watersheds separating the 

 headwaters of two glens. 



Finally, to speak about the sport itself, it is safe to say that 

 next to chamois stalking it is the keenest sport obtainable on 

 the Continent. Being less uncertain and less riskful, for there 

 is no climbing about it, it is more attractive to the ordinary 

 sportsman, and it leaves perhaps quite as pleasurable memories 

 in the minds of even the most ardent of Nimrods. 



Given a fairly well-stocked forest in one of the picturesque 

 regions of Styria, Salzburg, or Tyrol ; given clear, frosty, autumn 

 weather, and as your host a fair representative of the truly hos- 

 pitable and truly sport-loving Austrians, no more delightful 

 last week of September or first week of October can be passed 



