THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA. 147 



and is killed in the water; in early winter he is shot from the swift 

 sledge. In fact the only method of capture which is not resorted to 

 is that of snaring, so common a practice with knavish hunters at 

 home; but in all probability the reason for this abstinence is simply 

 that the spring-bow is more effective. 



The elk 34 exists under decidedly more favourable conditions, and 

 has a firmer footing in the struggle for existence. Its haunts and 

 habits, its strength and power of self-defence, secure it from many, 

 if not most pursuers. A forest animal in the full sense of the 

 word, as much at home in swamp and bog as in thicket or wood, 

 overcoming with equal ease all obstacles of forest and morass, 

 assured by the nature of its diet from the scarcity of winter, it 

 escapes more readily than any other beast of the chase from 

 pursuit either by man or by other dangerous enemies. The latter 

 include wolves, lynxes, bears, and gluttons; but it may be doubted 

 whether all these beasts of prey together very seriously affect the 

 elk. For it is as strong as it is courageous, it has in its sharp 

 hoofs even more formidable weapons than its antlers, and it knows 

 right well how to use both of them. It may fall victim to a bear who 

 surprises and overcomes it; but it undoubtedly hurls a single wolf 

 to the ground, and may even be victorious over a pack of these 

 eternally hungry creatures. As to lynx and glutton, the old story 

 that these are able to leap on the elk's neck and sever the jugular 

 vein does not seem to have been proved. Only against human 

 weapons are the elk's resources ineffective. But its pursuit in 

 Siberian forests is a precarious undertaking, and is little practised 

 except by the natives. During summer the water-loving beast is 

 hardly to be got at; it spends the greater part of the season in the 

 marsh, browsing by night and resting by day among the high marsh- 

 plants in a place accessible only to itself. The juicy water-plants 

 and their roots suit it better than the sharp sedges, and it therefore 

 browses in the deeper parts of the bog, where it pulls the plants out 

 of the water, dipping its uncouth head in the muddy moisture as 

 far as the roots of its donkey-like ears. When it lifts its head it 

 blows from its nose and mouth the mud and moisture which neces- 

 sarily entered its nostrils as it grubbed, and this makes a loud 



