A WALK TO FISCHBACHAU. 47 



" And there were stags, too?" I asked. 

 " Stags and roes in abundance. But now all are 

 shot. The peasants shoot everything. There," said he, 

 pointing to the antlers between the windows, " is the last 

 stag that Berger, my assistant-forester, shot. It was a 

 good one, as you see, and I have put up the antlers in 

 remembrance, for I dare say he will never shoot another 

 — it will be his last." 



" It is hardly credible," I observed, " that in so short 

 a time almost every head of game should have been ex- 

 terminated. It is very sad, for it would take a long 

 time to have all again as it once was." 



" No, it is not surprising when you think that the game 

 had never any rest. Day after day it was disturbed, shot 

 at, scared and driven from place to place. The peasants 

 did not get much, for if they wounded a stag or chamois 

 they had no good dog to follow it with, and so it was 

 generally lost. And all game must have quiet — that 

 is as indispensable as food. A great part therefore 

 went across to the Tyrol ; and the gamekeepers too shot 

 all they could, rather than let the peasants get it." 



And then he told me how he used to go into the moun- 

 tains, and sit for hours and watch the chamois and the 

 young kids as they disported themselves on the green 

 slopes, or stood upon the rocks and leaped from crag 

 to crag; but now, he said, he would go up there 

 no more, for all his pleasure in doing so was gone, 

 and his occupation rejoiced him no longer.* I already 



* In a letter received from the worthy forester since this was writ- 

 ten, he says : — " Although late in the autumn, after you were gone many 

 chamois collected here again. I much doubt if we shall see any 

 next summer, for the poor creatures that are now looking for their 

 winter haunts are so scared and hunted about, that their utter ex- 

 termination must be the consequence. No one can possibly tell the 

 pain all this causes me ; and I therefore never express what I feel to 



