136 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



days by the Master of the Hunt for the delectation of royalty, 

 by which many elk, bears, and other animals were killed. But, 

 as regards this branch of our subject, it will be sufficient to 

 notice very briefly two great drives which have taken place in 

 quite recent times in one of the royal forests near the town of 

 Wenersborg and the mountains of Hunneberg and Halleberg, 

 at the southern extremity of Lake We.nern. Both these great 

 functions were arranged for weeks beforehand, and many 

 hundred beaters employed in sweeping with a gigantic cordon, 

 which was never relaxed by day or night, an enormous extent 

 of forest, and moving the elk gradually to the stations of the 

 guns. The first ' skall ' took place during the visit of the 

 Prince of Wales to Sweden in 1885, when forty-nine elk were 

 killed during the day ; the second, in September, 1888, when, 

 so completely had the stock recovered from the previous 

 slaughter, that in three drives, also on the same day, there 

 were respectively slain twenty-four, twenty-eight (in this case 

 bulls only), and fourteen elk a total of sixty-six. Great 

 damage had been done by the deer to the young Scotch firs in 

 the forest, which is some excuse for such a massacre. 



By the Norwegian law, elk- hunting with the loose dog is in 

 reality forbidden ; at the same time, in several districts it is 

 practised to a considerable extent, and with impunity. But it 

 is in Sweden that this style of chase is most in vogue. To 

 begin with, the physical geography of that country lends itself 

 to the sport. The Swedish forest is for the most part of a 

 rolling character, swelling and sinking into hill and dale of 

 respectively moderate elevation and depth, and spreading out 

 into huge morasses and tracts of natural upland meadow with 

 a degree of uniformity that produces tame and somewhat 

 monotonous scenery. Sweden lacks the deep, gloomy gorges, 

 the precipitous or terraced mountain-faces, the boulder-strewn 

 and birch-clad dells of the higher fjeld, and the barren, stony 

 summits which are characteristic of Norway, and amongst 

 which, if a courageous and persevering hound be loosed at elk, 

 there is great danger of his being quickly and entirely lost to 



