1 32 DENSE COVERTS. 



CHAPTER VII. 



DENSE COVERTS. 



Unsuccessful sport Bruin and Stepan Black bread and onions 

 Forest music Mosquitoes Ticks and other insects Bruin's 

 fondness for honey Butterflies Our larder Narrow escape of 

 Stepan Unlucky days Watching for swine- Otters A cold 

 vigil An exasperating march. 



To recount day by day our adventures whilst 

 hunting at Golovinsky would certainly be weari- 

 some to the general reader ; and even the keenest 

 sportsman has enough blank days of his own with- 

 out reading the record of other people's. In spite 

 of the fair beginning I had made, in the first two 

 days of my stay, sport was not always as good or 

 game so plentiful. Day after day, from dawn to 

 dusk, often dragging our weary limbs home through 

 icy torrents, by the feeble rays of a young moon, 

 without whose light we had already been some time 

 wandering in the forest darkness, we toiled unceas- 

 ingly without getting another bear, although their 

 tracks abounded everywhere. 



Boars were at first fairly plentiful, and with 

 them we did pretty well, though with them as with 

 the few bears we did see, Stepan almost invariably 



