128 SPORT IX NORWAY. 



and Sweden ; there is scarcely a village that lias not 

 its shooting club. Little wonder if the number of 

 native hunters increase ! 



Some of the old hunters will tell marvellous tales. 

 Up in the country the peasants are extremely super- 

 stitious, and would, I verily believe, sooner give cre- 

 dence to anything very unlikely than to a plain matter- 

 of-fact histoiy. For instance, Mr. Asbjornsen relates : 

 " I have been told that it is worse than useless to aim 

 at an elk's forehead unless at very close quarters ; and 

 in exemplification of this interesting assertion was in- 

 formed that a man once shot seven times at an elk. 

 All seven balls struck the animal in the forehead, and 

 all seven glanced off in different directions. The sug- 

 gestion that it was not owing to any extraordinary 

 thickness of skull, but to weak powder, was, I need 

 scarcely add, pooh-poohed." 



According to an old saying, the elk-hunter must 

 not only have a firm and steady hand, a sure eye, and 

 a trusty rifle, but he must also be possessed of a hard 

 heart. A dying elk, they say, looks at his murderer 

 in a most reproachful and pitiful manner. I have read 

 of a man who had killed several elks in his time. One 

 day, when out hunting, he came upon a couple, and 

 took aim at the largest one. The ball struck the 

 animal in a mortal part, but it did not immediately fall 

 to the ground. Meanwhile, it kept getting weaker and 



