THE SCAN DIN A VI AN ELK 147 



as it comes into view. The narrow line revealed should be 

 carefully examined with concentrated attention, and as far as 

 possible to right and left. In this way the top of an elk's horn 

 or the line of his back maybe detected before the whole animal 

 is visible. The natural tendency of the eye is to search too 

 much space at once, and to keep on repeating a general gaze, 

 including ground already made safe, instead of fixing an intense 

 one on a fresh and limited area. Where there is much forest 

 or brushwood, field-glasses will be found of the greatest use in 

 searching between the foliage and stems ; for in spite of their 

 size elk are astonishingly difficult to detect, even in low covert 

 and by the most practised eye. Moreover, in the shadow of a 

 wood various objects will often bear so strong a resemblance 

 to a motionless elk, that even eyes as keen as those of my 

 Lapp hunter, whose quickness and strength of sight are re- 

 markable, are frequently unable to determine their real nature 

 without reference to the glasses. He always carries a pair of 

 his own. 



The stalker at a considerable elevation will often find 

 that, when expecting momentarily to view the elk, he is led 

 to the verge of a very steep slope, forming the side of a 

 ravine or dell, overgrown with trees and brushwood, and not 

 seldom strewn with much dead lumber. On a bank of this 

 nature there frequently flourishes a considerable growth of 

 tall herbage, and of birch and mountain-ash, trees on which 

 the elk delights to feed ; the bark of the latter is his especial 

 dainty : I have seen copses in which out of some hundreds of 

 stems there was scarcely one that did not show marks of his 

 destroying teeth. In such a situation a very common one it 

 is almost impossible to approach the elk from above. If they 

 are not detected by peering over the bank, the only safe plan 

 is first carefully to examine the farther side of the ravine, and 

 then by making a long circuit to try to gain some high point 

 thereon from which, with due observance of the wind, the hither 

 side may also be inspected. I have known many native hunters, 

 as hasty and impatient as their dogs, blunder down into such 



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