THE TYROL. SCHARNITZ. 401 



" In three weeks I was able to go out, but my hands 

 were still bound up, and as to the scars, they of course 

 will remain to my dying day. It was lucky that no 

 nerve or sinew was injured by the wooden nails j but 

 so it was, and right thankful am I to Providence that I 

 escaped so well. 



(: As to the three men who crucified me, I have often 

 seen them since in the inn-room and out in the fields ; 

 but I thought ' I won't be their judge J* However, should 

 I meet them in the wood or on the mountain in my ter- 

 ritory, then I shall do as I have always done yet."* 



The mountains here abound in black-cock and ptar- 

 migan. Of a morning we continually heard the call of 

 the former, and the latter beautiful bird we frequently 

 surprised on its bed of snow. 



The vulture, even more perhaps than the poacher, is 

 the redoubtable foe of game in the mountains. The 

 flocks too suffer by his presence, and the number of 

 lambs carried away every year from the pastures by these 

 birds is almost incredible. Hence every effort is made 

 by the keepers to catch or shoot them. The latter 

 method is seldom successful; for it is chance merely 

 that brings the sportsman in such proximity to them as 

 to get a shot. 



Wrack's cousin, who is noted too for his skill in imi- 

 tating and catching every sort of bird, told me some 

 curious details about the vulture. He had caught a 

 young one, and hoping to make this a means of catch- 

 ing the old bird, he fastened a strap to its leg and te- 

 thered it to the ground on a mountain-top. For three 

 or four days the old birds did not make their appear- 

 ance, probably not having found out where the young 



* There is something quite matchless in the self-complacency ex- 

 pressed in these last lines. 



2d 



