144 HUNTING CAMPS. 



the outlying districts could be conveniently hunted. Before 

 the season opened I visited these saeiers, and was able to 

 gain some knowledge of the ground. At the last moment I 

 rented an extra right which the owner, a farmer in a small 

 way, declared to be excellent, and as he was willing that I 

 should walk over the ground with an elk-dog I did so. This 

 right, on a farm called Brusvasaasen, adjoined my best 

 Elstad ground, and among the raspberry canes, which 

 covered the hillside, there were such evident traces of elk as 

 to convince me that the farmer was in the right. I there- 

 fore came to an arrangement with him. 



Elk-hunting in Norway, though it demands hard work 

 and effort, compares unfavourably in my opinion with 

 moose-hunting in that it must be pursued on long-occupied 

 ground, and does not give anything like the same oppor- 

 tunities for wilderness life, but is in fact carried out under 

 conditions rather similar to those of an exceedingly rough 

 Scottish shooting. Although I took a tent over, I could 

 never succeed in persuading the Norwegians to use it. 

 They objected on the score that to camp in a tent would 

 only result in driving away the elk, who took little notice 

 of the summer camps in the saeters because they were 

 accustomed to them, whereas the unfamiliar sight of a tent 

 camp would alarm them. As I had always, out of England, 

 hunted in countries where the whole land was free, I felt 

 at first a good deal irked by the boundaries, and indeed 

 during the whole season never quite attained the sense of 

 freedom, which is the main charm of a hunter's life. 



Apart from this, however, Norwegian shooting does 

 possess one or two great advantages, the chief of them 

 being that no part of any animal killed is wasted ; and 

 although I consider it absolutely legitimate to shoot an 

 animal for his horns, yet it is certainly much more satis- 

 factory to know that the flesh is valuable as food. The 

 sportsman's share of any animal he kills is the head and 



