196 IN THE LAND OF THE BORA. 



fowl (till end of February) and snipe. These last 

 seem to rank here with bear, wolf, wild boar, and 

 fox, for there is no close season for any of them. 

 The boar, as will be seen hereafter, is very rare in 

 the Herzegovina, and the bears do not come out 

 from their winter quarters till April, so practically 

 we are reduced to wolf and fox. For the former, we 

 had two drives that winter, both towards Nevesinje. 

 I was invited to both, but on the second occasion 

 I was advised not to go. Of course this was the 

 only occasion on which wolves were seen. The 

 first one only resulted in a couple of roebucks ; 

 but on the later occasion three wolves were moved 

 on an open hillside late in the day. Of these, one 

 was fired at nine times, and, though severely 

 wounded, got away. The other two broke back 

 through the beaters, and were poisoned the week 

 after. Wolf-shooting is always a very flukey amuse- 

 ment, owing to the great distances the animals 

 cover in a night, and even if they are on the ground 

 they are most difficult to bring to the gun. For 

 this reason most of those killed here are poisoned. 

 This is no doubt desirable, but the indiscriminate 

 use of poison for foxes is less so, and many a 

 sportsman has had to deplore the loss of a valuable 

 dog for this reason. 



In shooting from Mostar, the weather is a very 

 important factor ; and it must be admitted that 

 the climate " leaves to be desired," as the French 



