124 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



in the company of a Norwegian nobleman, he was fortunate 

 enough to be an eye-witness of the death of the only two elk 

 they found, both of which succumbed, after a severe run, to 

 sudden epileptic attacks, otherwise they would certainly never 

 have been overtaken ! He records, moreover, his scornful 

 rejection of one of the elk's feet, kindly offered by his host as 

 a sovereign preservative against this terrible ' falling sickness,' 

 on the not unreasonable ground that the pretended virtue of 

 the foot had been of little use to its original owner. 



We thus see that from the earliest times some degree of 

 mystery and special interest has been attached to the habits 

 and chase of the elk, whose obscure existence in the depth of 

 Northern forests, and gigantic uncouthness of appearance, 

 amounting almost to deformity, still seem to indicate him as 

 a survivor from the remote age of antediluvian or primaeval 

 monsters. 



Owing to the wise protective enactments of the Govern- 

 ment, extending over more than half a century, the Scandi- 

 navian elk, which although formerly abundant was at one 

 time almost in danger of extinction, has of late years again 

 spread rapidly over a great part of Norway and Sweden, where- 

 ever the country is sufficiently wild and wooded to suit its 

 habits. It is indeed found even within a comparatively short 

 distance of the capitals, some of the best elk-ground in 

 Norway being accessible by a short railway or road journey 

 from Christiania ; but this is principally in the hands of gentle- 

 men resident in that city, by whom the game in the adjacent 

 forests is often as strictly preserved as that in our coverts at 

 home. It appears, however, that the elk is still almost un- 

 known in the extreme north that is, within the Arctic Circle. 

 Its range throughout the whole Scandinavian Peninsula, with 

 the exception of rare stragglers, may be fairly reckoned as 

 lying between 57 and 66 30 N. By the published returns of 

 the ' Norsk Jaeger og Fisker Forening,' we learn that in 1889, 

 which may be accepted as an average year, elk were killed in 

 eleven out of the eighteen amis or provinces of Norway. North 



