CHAPTER VI. 



AN ELK-HUNTING SEASON IN NORWAY. 



[Note. The chapter following is included in this book 

 as the author thinks it may interest his readers to compare 

 the methods adopted in Norway in hunting the elk (A Ices 

 machlis) with those in vogue in America for hunting the 

 moose (A Ices americanus), the New World form of the same 

 animal.] 



IN 1905 I decided to try a season in Norway, and in pur- 

 suance of this plan I rented eighteen elk-rights in the 

 province of Namdalen. Most of the elk forests in this 

 district form part of the area of various farms, and conse- 

 quently the rights belong to the farmers, and upon each 

 " right " an elk, either bull or cow, may be killed. 



The Norwegian farmers live a free, if hard, life, but they 

 derive in many cases their chief means of comfort from the 

 leasing of their sporting rights. The cost of a licence to 

 shoot elk is 100 kroners, a little more than 5, and the elk- 

 rights cost from 5 to 15 apiece, according to the chances 

 of success which they offer. A certain number of rights are 

 to be hired in London, but as a rule better value is to be 

 obtained by dealing direct with the farmers or owners. It 

 has of late been the wise policy of the Norwegian Storthing 

 to cut down the length of the shooting season ; from two 

 months it has already shrunk to twenty-one days, so brief a 

 period as to force strong temptation upon the hunter to 



