38 SHORT STALKS 



in difficulties ^ are often realised. Chamois are, as a rule, 

 found at an elevation of from six to eioht thousand feet, and 

 do not affect the tops of peaks, or very break- neck places 

 unless they have been alarmed. Some mauvais fKi>i are 

 encountered, but as a rope is a hindrance, and is seldom 

 carried, no one but a fool would court really bad places 

 which mioht be turned. 



Neither is the sport a very arduous one. The dis- 

 tances to be traversed are not really great, and though 

 there is always a sharp burst of climbing of from one 

 to three thousand feet — for the approach has almost in- 

 variably to 1)6 made from above — the ground must lie 



^ I may be permitted to cull a few specimens from the literature of tlie 

 subject, wliicli accounts for tlie glamour wliicli surrounds it in the public 

 mind. One old German writer says that " the most dangerous chase of all 

 is that of a chamois. The hunter must manage all alone, as neither man 

 nor dog can be of any service to him. His accoutrements consist of an old 

 coat, a bag with dry liread, cheese, and meat ; a gun, his hunting-knife, and 

 a pair of irons for the feet. He then drives the chamois from one crag to 

 the other, making them always mount higher, climbs after them, and shoots 

 them if he can, or if he finds it necessary ; Init if tliat should not be the 

 case, and he has driven one so far that it is no lunger able to elude him, he 

 approaches quite close, puts his hunting-knife to its side, which the chamois, 

 of its own accord, pushes into its body, and then falls down headlong from 

 the r(jck." There is nothing impossible in the following, and I should l)e sorry 

 to deny the truth of it, but I have not had the good fortune to observe such 

 a game of " leap-frog " myself. We read of chamois crossing a snow-field, 

 "that they hasten their tlight in the following manner. The last chamois 

 jumps on the back of the one before him, passes in this way over the backs 

 of all tlie others, and then ]ilaces himself at their head. The last but one 

 does the same, and the others follow in order ; and in this manner they have 

 soon passed over such a field of snow," Such writers do, however, occa- 

 sionally hit upon the truth, as, for instance, where one of them says, " It is 

 their inner heat which inii)els them to seek those places where snow is to be 

 found." A friend of mine once took the temperature of a freshly-killed 

 chamois, and it stood at 130° Fahrenheit. I am ashamed to say that I have 

 never verified this experiment. 



