36 SHOOTING ALPINE IBEX 



presents of young ibex to the Emperor 

 Franz Joseph in order to introduce this game 

 among his mountains, especially in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Salzburg, but that these attempts 

 proved unsuccessful. Evidently there are 

 special factors, such as climate and the quality 

 of the soil, which are necessary to the existence 

 of the alpine ibex. 



The company of beaters, some hundred and 

 fifty to two hundred men, is usually sent out 

 on the previous evening, spending the night in 

 primitive fashion in the mountains, so as to be 

 ready at daybreak for the dangerous and heavy 

 climb upwards. These sinewy, brown fellows, 

 with their open, sincere countenances, hardened 

 by the sharp struggle for existence in an 

 unfruitful land, were particularly attractive 

 to me, as, indeed, are all mountaineers. And 

 this sympathy soon changed to whole-hearted 

 admiration, as I watched these honest folk at 

 their work of driving. 



I, myself, have seen these plucky fellows on 

 almost perpendicular slopes, on which even 

 chamois would falter, moving and turning with 



